This Thing of Darkness
by AKs-on-show
Summary: Mercenaries Rann Tye and Lilith are sent on their most dangerous mission yet: rescuing the long lost daughter of a noble house, the only member of her family who escaped being butchered at the hands of a Sith Lord and a turncoat politician. Danger and treachery lurk around every corner as they race across the galaxy... but there's more going on than meets the eye.
1. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

* * *

**DRAMATIS PERSONAE**

Astrid; Jedi Master (female human)

Darth Evancer; Dark Lady of the Sith (female Muun)

Erik Meheron; heir to the Barony of Metastrato (male human)

Faran Kess; Dark Jedi (male human)

Gila; passenger, _StarHawk_ (female Twi'lek)

Hiram Cotra; Regent of Metastrato (male human)

Kaalibaparra; matriarch of Wrookroshr (female Wookiee)

Laahn Ka; Jedi Knight (female Togruta)

Lilithan'cara, 'Lilith'; co-pilot, _StarHawk_ (female Twi'lek)

Luma Beras; captain, _Beras Scorcher_ (female human)

Nyanna Meheron; heir to the Barony of Metastrato; Jedi apprentice (female human)

Otroota; co-pilot, _Beras Scorcher_ (male Dug)

Rann Tye; captain, _StarHawk_ (male human)

R3-L4; astromech droid

Sheen Him; technician, _StarHawk_ (male Aleena)

Valeria Lorda; captain, Coalition Defence Fleet; commanding officer, _Regency_ (female human)

* * *

**For a hundred years, the people of the Metastrato Sector have grown prosperous and strong under the rule of the Meheron dynasty. Protected by the JEDI KNIGHTS in their fortress Shattermoon, the Meherons have ruled with a firm but fair hand.**

**But not all is well. The people are disquiet. Protestors mass outside the baronial palace, calling for democracy, for a return to the decadent ways of old. Treachery lurks around every corner. A SITH LORD stands poised to emerge from the shadows.**

**The threads of destiny draw tight...**


	2. Prologue i - Shattermoon

**SHATTERMOON**

* * *

"The crowd's getting bigger."

"Mm," Baron Jaisann Meheron, the third of his name, agreed as his wife Ethella stepped into place beside him. The large transparisteel viewport they stood before afforded them a wonderful view of Shattermoon and the green disc of Metastrato Prime it orbited. The city of Proxima spread out before them, glittering towers and spires interspersed with pressurised domes, filled with greenery and open-air marketplaces.

Two hundred years before, Shattermoon had been home to barely twenty million people, most of them miners. Now, more than a billion people lived in dozens of cities just like Proxima. The old mining colony had become the financial, political and military centre of a state spanning nearly a hundred light years and dozens of inhabited worlds. Jaisann III's family had been entirely responsible for that. They'd ended the decadent democracy that had driven Metastrato Prime to civil war, a conflict that had engulfed the surrounding region. They'd brought stability, security and justice to an entire sector, created an oasis of peace and prosperity in a galaxy plagued by strife.

Now, in the gardens that surrounded the Baronial Palace, his people were protesting. The protests had been going for days now, ever since he and the Ruling Council had voted to forestall plans to convene a parliament.

He swallowed. He wiped his sweaty palms on his opulent purple tunic. The gold and silver sash that ran from his left shoulder to his right hip, the mark of his baronial rule, glinted in the light reflected off Metastrato Prime. "I think you and the children should prepare to evacuate the palace. If the protests become riots..."

"Do you think they will?" Ethella said, arching a shaped eyebrow at her husband. She wore a dress the same colour as Jaisann's tunic, in a simple but elegant cut. Though her only outward mark of aristocracy was the baronial circlet resting on her crown, she had an unmistakably regal bearing.

"No," Jaisann said. "The people may not like that we've delayed convening parliament but they're not going to riot. There's too much at stake..."

"My lord," a voice issued from the rear of the baronial observation suite. Beautifully decorated and frequently serving as a reception chamber for high-ranking visitors, the suite was located at the top of the baronial palace's tallest tower. Jaisann turned to see his prime minister enter the room, wearing the robes of his office. An intelligent, craven man, Hiram Cotra was the _de facto_ political leader of the Metastraten Coalition, the chairman of the Ruling Council and one of the finest political minds Jaisann had ever known.

"Prime minister," the baron said by way of greeting.

"I'm afraid my agents are telling me that the organisers of the protest are planning to stage one or two violent actions sometime in the next forty-eight hours," Cotra warned as he stepped over beside the baron and baroness. He looked down on the protesters, waving their holobanners and chanting their slogans, with something approaching contempt. "I think it's best if you and your family retreated to the Sanctum, or perhaps left Shattermoon altogether."

The Sanctum was the armoured bunker at the heart of the palace, a supposedly self-contained suite of rooms designed to keep the royal family and the high ministers safe for up to a year at a time.

Jaisann shook his head. "I'll not abandon the seat of my power, not as long as the Coalition still stands."

"But, my lord..." Cotra began to protest.

"He's not leaving," Ethella said, turning away from the prime minister. She'd never much liked the man. "And neither am I."

"They won't riot," Jaisann said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "I know my people. They are disappointed, I'm sure, but they won't allow their baser instincts to get the better of them."

"Do you know what they're chanting?" Cotra pressed. "'Democracy now!', 'Power to the people!'. They're talking about disbanding the Coalition, casting you from your throne. The democrats, the revanchists, the regressives... they're arming themselves, my lord, and they want your head."

Ethella shot Cotra a filthy look. "How dare you say such vile things."

"My lady, please," Cotra said, doing a good job of actually looking repentant. "I'm just trying to impress upon you how dire the situation may become. Lifting the ban on political parties has only added fuel to a flame that was already simmering. If we're not careful it could..."

Before he could say another word, there was a flash down in the gardens and the very foundations of the palace seemed to shake.

"What was that?" Ethella shouted.

Jaisann rushed to the window. "There's a fire down there!"

"It must have been a bomb," Cotra said, joining the baron and his wife. The crowd was surging now, trying to flee from a growing conflagration. At its centre was a wide, scorched crater. Jaisann realised with horror that the explosion had gouged a hole in the outer walls of the palace. Already, enraged protestors were streaming inside.

Cotra's eyes widened and he lunged for the commlink on his belt. Flicking it open, he cried "All palace guards on full alert! The outer perimeter has been breached!"

"We need to go," Jaissan said, taking his wife's arm.

"The children," Ethella answered, unable to take her eyes off the protest which had, indeed, devolved into a full-scale riot. The armoured palace guards that had been holding the gates were now being pelted by stones. Firing their stun blasters into the crowd only seemed to make the rioters angrier.

"They're in their bedchambers," Jaisann said. "The Jedi will secure them. Come!"

With that, and with Cotra following them, they made for the turbolifts at the rear of the chamber.

* * *

The alarms were blaring through the residential wing of the palace. Straightening her tunic, Jedi Knight Laahn Ka couldn't quite believe what was happening. She'd made sure the Meheron children were all comfortably in their rooms before turning in herself a little more than an hour ago. The protest had been growing then but had still been quite peaceful. Now an explosion had rocked Proxima and opened the baronial palace to a hoard of furious democrats.

"Master Jedi!"

Laahn Ka spun around at the sound of the approaching voice. A tall, beautiful Togruta, she had orange-red skin and elegantly curving horns atop her head. Two long brain tails fell over her shoulders while a third cascaded down her back. She wore the simple robes of her order, the Samean Chapter, which for over a hundred years had been tasked with guarding the Meherons and the Metastraten Coalition.

"Captain Colin," she greeted the armour-clad palace guard as he came to a stop before her. "What's the situation?"

"The prime minister and the baron are retreating to the Sanctum," he told her, his chest heaving as he fought to catch his breath. He was obviously panicked, though his professionalism and training had taken over. "I have squads on the lower levels but the rioters are armed. I'm not sure how long they'll be able to hold them off."

"Armed?" Laahn Ka balked. "How is that possible?"

Colin shook his head. "I don't know. Intelligence has been keeping a close eye on the protests since they started and we had absolutely no clue they would get violent, let alone that they'd be carrying blaster rifles when they did."

"I need to get to the children," Laahn Ka said, hand instantly flying to the hilt of her lightsabre. The thirty centimetre-long metal cylinder clipped to her belt felt like an extension of her being. Through the Force, it practically was.

"My men have already secured Lyla and Renera," Colin told her.

Laahn Ka nodded. The two eldest girls were safe. That left Nyanna, the third child and youngest daughter, and Erik, the family's only son. "Nyanna's room is closer to the main entrance," she said. "I'll go and get her. You find Erik and get him to the Sanctum. Nothing else matters, captain, until the children are locked down with their parents."

"Yes, ma'am," Colin said with a nod. He snapped off a salute and tore off down the corridor, towards where Erik's chamber was located.

Laahn Ka wasted no time setting off towards Nyanna's room. Servants and low-level functionaries dashed about, most of them looking panicked, but she didn't spare them a thought. Her mind was entirely on Nyanna. She'd served as the personal bodyguard to the Meheron children for almost three years now and though she loved and served each of them, she'd grown especially close to Nyanna, a sweet girl of thirteen.

Flying down the plushly-carpeted corridor, she raced up a staircase and onto the landing that led to Nyanna's chambers. To her horror, she found the doors already open. Bursting inside, she cried "Nyanna!"

The girl's four-poster bed lay empty, the bedclothes mussed.

Laahn Ka's heart stopped. She whipped the lightsabre from her belt and activated it. A beam of pure energy burst into life, plunging the dark room into an ethereal blue twilight. Reaching out with the Force, she tried to locate Nyanna's presence.

"Laahn Ka!"

Spinning, the Jedi saw Nyanna Meheron, skinny, pale-skinned and dark-haired, clutched in the arms of an enormous, loping leonine creature. With fur darker than the deepest night, which seemed to ripple and shimmer oddly in the reflected light, the creature wore a simple robe of ragged white material and examined the Jedi closely with faintly glowing yellow eyes.

"Let her go," Laahn Ka growled, taking a threatening step towards the beast.

"That I cannot do," it replied, its voice a low, threatening rumble. "You should flee, Master Jedi, while you still can."

"Is that a _threat_?" the Togruta Jedi Knight said with a glower. "You're obviously not familiar with the Samean Jedi, beast. We're pledged to protect the Meheron family with our lives and we do not respond well to _threats_."

"Not a threat," the creature said, the words a low, melodious rasp. "A warning. The outbreak of the riot was no accident. This has been a plan, many years in the making. I was sent here to rescue the children."

Nyanna, Laahn Ka noticed, was shaking madly inside the beast's grip. Tears streaked her colourless cheeks. She was terrified.

"Rescue them? They're in the safest building in the sector," Laahn Ka said, taking another step towards the creature and deciding to try a different tact. "Please, just let the girl go. Can't you see that she's scared?"

The beast offered what Laahn Ka guessed was a wry smile. "She should be. The clouds of darkness are descending upon the Metastraten Coalition."

It moved, as though to make for the exit. Laahn Ka made to block it but the creature made a series of long, loping steps, its skeletal structure seeming to morph impossibly as it did so. It knocked her out of the way effortlessly.

"No!" she cried, giving chase. By the time she reached the landing, however, there was no sign of the creature and the little girl it had taken hostage. "Nyanna!"

No answer was forthcoming.

Suddenly, the floor seemed to disappear out from under Laahn Ka. A roar filled the air and she was pitched forward. She hit the ground, hard, as the lights overhead darkened and then went out. Another explosion, she realised, leaping to her feet immediately.

Thankfully, she'd managed to maintain her grip on her lightsabre. Snatching her commlink from her belt with her other hand, she flicked it open as she ran down the corridor. "Laahn Ka to all palace guards, this is an emergency. An unknown hostile has taken custody of Nyanna. I repeat, an unknown hostile has taken custody of Nyanna. This is not a drill."

"_Master Jedi,_" a voice filtered through in response. She recognised it as Colin. "_Can you confirm._"

"Nyanna's been taken, Colin," Laahn Ka said, the shame of her failure to prevent the girl's kidnapping weighing heavily upon her. "Some sort of black-furred felinoid. Large, at least two metres tall."

"_I'll put everyone on the lookout,_" Colin said, "_but there's been another explosion. It's knocked out power to half the building. Our automated defences are offline, we've got multiple exterior breaches._"

Laahn Ka's blood ran cold. "Please, Colin, tell me you got Erik."

"_That's an affirmative,_" Colin said and the Togruta allowed herself a moment of relief. "_I'm with him now. We're on a secure elevator headed straight to the Sanctum._"

"Thank the Force," she said. "Look, I won't be able to join you. I'm going to keep looking for Nyanna. If I find her, I'll make my way down to the Sanctum."

"_And if you don't?_"

"Then I'll have failed," Laahn Ka said, cutting the transmission.

* * *

"Papa!" Lyla Meheron shouted, leaping to her feet as her father stepped off the turbolift into the lobby just outside the Sanctum, followed by his wife and Hiram Cotra. Unlike most of the palace, this section was stark and coldly functional lacking in decoration or adornment of any kind. Heavy blast-proof doors bracketed the entryway to the Sanctum, the cold, white plasteel environs of which seemed to underline just how cut off from everything they would be inside.

The fifteen-year-old threw herself into her father's arms, her eighteen year old sister stepping into place beside her. A squad of palace guards, lightly armoured and wielding blaster pistols, stood behind the baronial princesses.

"You gentlemen got them to safety?" he asked over Lyla's shoulder as he hugged her tight to him.

"Yes, sir," the leader, a Bothan lieutenant, said with a nod.

"Excellent work," the baron said as he let Lyla go and stepped towards Renera, pulling her into an embrace. Behind him, Ethella scooped Lyla into her arms. "You have my thanks."

"Just doing our duty," the Bothan assured him.

"Where are Erik and Nyanna?" Ethella asked the soldiers.

"Erik's on his way now, ma'am," the lieutenant said. "Laahn Ka reported that she wasn't able to get to Nyanna in time. According to her, an unknown intruder intercepted your daughter. Laahn Ka is in pursuit now."

Ethella clapped a hand to her mouth and Jaisann thought the floor was about to swallow him. His mouth went dry and he immediately let Renera go, spinning towards the turbolift.

"Dad," Renera said, eyes wide. "Where are you going?"

"Nyanna," he said, shellshocked. "I have to... I have to find Nyanna."

"My lord!" the lieutenant and Hiram Cotra chorused. The prime minister stepped in between Jaisann and the turbolift door. "You can't. You need to get inside the Sanctum. The Jedi will find Nyanna. Your first priority must be securing yourself and your family."

Jaisann looked as though he'd been slapped. "My daughter is out there, Cotra!"

Ethella, tears running down her cheeks, placed a hand on her husband's shoulder. "He's right, my love. If you go out there now, you can nothing more for Nyanna. You'll do nothing at all, except put yourself in danger. Renera, Lyla, Erik and I all need you. Metastrato needs you. Laahn Ka will not give up until she has found our daughter. You know that."

"She's right, dad," Renera said.

He looked at his daughters, fighting back tears. He was still struggling to understand what was happening. The protests had been going on for days, weeks, with no sign of violence. Now, in the space of less than an hour, a full blown riot had broken out. The protestors had engaged in acts of terrorism, damaging his palace and, apparently, kidnapping his daughter. Whatever happened next, the entire Metastraten Coalition would be plunged into chaos. It was his duty to shepherd his people through the turbulence that was sure to follow.

His children so resembled him: almond-shaped eyes, pale skin, dark hair. His wife was beautiful, strong and wise, his partner through the challenges that leadership threw at him on a daily basis. He owed it to them to remain strong.

"Very well," he said, straightening himself up to his full height. "My son is definitely on the way?"

The turbolift doors hummed open at that very second, disgorging Captain Colin and Erik Meheron. The ten year old boy was still in his pyjamas, unlike his elder sisters who had both been awake when the protestors had breached the outer walls. Yawning, he held onto Colin's hand for dear life.

"Erik!" Ethella said, rushing to her son and lifting him into her arms.

"Thank you, captain," Jaisann said, stepping forward to shake the man's hand.

"My duty and my honour, my lord," he replied gravely. "Have you been briefed on Nyanna's situation?"

"I'm afraid so," Jaisann answered, but before he could go on Cotra stepped in between them.

"Now that we've secured as much of your family as we can, my lord, I think we should enter the Sanctum," the prime minister said, trying to usher the baron towards the entry.

"Once we seal the doors, they won't open again until the danger's passed," Ethella reminded the gathered group. "That'll leave Nyanna on the wrong side of a very thick locked door."

"Laahn Ka will look after her," Erik chimed in. "She always does."

Jaisann hesitated, looking from Ethella and Erik to Renera and Lyla in turn. His family watched him expectantly, his wife doing her best to hold back the flood of tears that threatened to overwhelm her. Renera and Lyla simply looked fearful, while Erik had the look of a boy on an adventure about him. To his little boy's mind, it must have all seemed so terribly exciting.

"My lord..." Cotra said.

Jaisann fought the urge to snarl at the prime minister. He was only doing his job. At length, the baron nodded. "Fine. Seal it off."

With that, he turned and led his family into the sterile white confines of the Sanctum. Captain Colin and Hiram Cotra followed, while the phalanx of palace guards hefted their blasters and aimed them at the lobby's entryways. Once inside, Cotra input a final security code: with the hiss of hydraulics and the groan of tired metal, the enormous blast doors lowered and sealed the Meherons away.


	3. Prologue ii - Shattermoon

**SHATTERMOON**

* * *

The residential wing was in total darkness. A fire had broken out somewhere. Laahn Ka could smell the smoke, even feel some of the residual heat: no doubt the fire suppression systems had gone down when the power had been disrupted.

The Jedi's mind was racing. How could the rioters have been so organised? There had been at least a dozen organisations protesting in the gardens outside the palace and most of them hated each other. The democrats would never have even spoken to the regressives, let alone organised a riot with them. Besides, how could anyone, even a creature as obviously gifted as the beast that taken Nyanna, have gotten past the layers of defence between the garden and the residential wing so easily?

And the power outage... a bomber would have had to know exactly which conduit or series of conduits to take out. If the generator had been hit, one of the backups would have come on instantaneously.

The intruder had been right. This had been planned, Laahn Ka realised. An inside job.

She had little conscious idea of where she was going. She was just running, letting the Force guide her, while she tried to piece together what had happened. At least, she comforted herself, the rest of the family was safe. She'd find Nyanna, reunite her with her siblings and parents, and erase the failure that currently threatened to overwhelm her.

She reached out, probing the passage up ahead.

A tiny pinprick, pain and rage and fear, tickled her senses. She recognised the unique character of those emotions immediately: it was Nyanna. With renewed energy, Laahn Ka raced onwards, rounding a bend... only to see a dark-furred hind paw retreat through a crawlway in the ceiling. She realised with a start that she was on the upper floor of the residential wing. The beast was trying to get Nyanna onto the roof.

Gathering the Force beneath her, the Togruta Jedi sprung upwards and managed to haul herself into the crawlway. It seemed to be too tight for the giant creature she'd seen in Nyanna's chambers but she reminded herself that the monster had had a strangely flexible skeletal structure. Perhaps it had been able to morph itself through the tiny access hatch.

Laahn Ka pulled herself through the crawlway until she found another open hatch, this one leading out into the cool night air of the pressure dome that encapsulated the palace and its grounds. She crawled out into the cool Shattermoon night, only to be assaulted by smoke and heat: a series of fires were burning, emanating both from the palace and its grounds. She could hear blaster fire, enraged shouts and screams of pain.

She looked around, trying to orient herself. The delicate spires of the palace stretched up from the main wing, towards the dome's ceiling. The residential wing, along with the administrative wing it faced, made a horseshoe that encompassed the landscaped courtyard. Looking out over the courtyard, which was all but devoid of people, she could see a small, black vessel moving at speed. Her jaw dropped. She'd never seen anything like it: an elegant, flying-wing design that reminded her of a Nubian craft.

Its matte black hull suited the smoke-filled air and its thruster engines seemed to use dark-burning fuel isotope. It was a stealth ship and somehow it had snuck into the palace pressure dome, one of the most secure sites in the galaxy. Laahn Ka knew in an instant that it was there to spirit away Nyanna Meheron.

She instantly calculated where the stealth ship's course would take it, to a spot about a hundred metres further down the roof of the residential wing. Gathering the Force behind her, she sprung forward, running with preternatural speed.

"Laahn Ka!" a tiny voice screamed over the roar of the fire and the clamour of the riot.

Amidst the smoke, the Togruta Jedi saw the enormous black creature and the small girl it still clutched tightly.

"Let her go!" Laahn Ka roared as she pounced towards the beast. With a movement the delicacy of which belied the creature's size and strength, it easily sidestepped her admittedly clumsy lunge. Laahn Ka, who had tucked her lightsabre away when she followed Nyanna onto the roof, pulled it from her belt and activated it again. "I won't warn you again."

"You won't have to," the creature said. "My people have been allies of the Jedi for over a century, since one of your number returned one of ours to us. We swore an oath, that day, never to harm a Jedi Knight. We have upheld that oath. I plan to continue to do so. I have also sworn an oath to deliver this girl to safety. You can see that this place is not safe. You can see that my people keep our oaths."

"Let me go!" Nyanna wailed.

"I can't, child!" the creature answered her.

"Maybe you can't," Laahn Ka snarled, "but you will!"

With that, she lunged at the beast, swinging her lightsabre in a large, powerful arc. The monster tried to step back but couldn't entirely escape the blade's glittering reach. It bit into the beast's meaty arm and it roared as the smell of scorched fur battled with the smoke to reach Laahn Ka's nose. For a moment, its grip loosened on Nyanna and the girl almost got free.

Regaining its composure, the beast lashed out with a mighty fist, knocking Laahn Ka in the shoulder despite her efforts to dodge.

"I won't kill you, Jedi," the beast said. "Stop trying to make me."

The ship had reached them now. It had lowered a boarding ramp and was rapidly descending towards them. Laahn Ka scrambled to get back on her feet. She'd dropped her lightsabre but called it to her hand with the Force. Reactivating the cerulean blue blade once again, she prepared to make one last lunge at the black-furred creature.

Too late.

Its preternatural power sent it sailing up into the dark, smoke-filled night sky. It landed on the boarding ramp and quickly dashed inside, Nyanna Meheron squirming and screaming in its grasp. Laahn Ka screamed with frustration and failure as the ship's ramp closed and it sped off into the darkness, taking her charge and her prey with it.

* * *

Flanked by Hiram Cotra and Captain Colin, the Meheron family swept into the main room of the Sanctum. Walls, floor, ceiling and furnishings all of the whitest white, it resembled a cross between a family lounge and a command and control centre. A bank of monitors dominated the far wall, where a single high-backed chair faced them. From that seat, one trained officer could coordinate Shattermoon's entire defence network.

"All of this is wrong," Jaisann spat as he entered the room, his wife, daughters and son at his side. He was shaking with rage and worry. None of his children had ever seen him so worked up. Even the normally unflappable Ethella was shaken.

"Dad?" Renera asked, stepping closer to her father.

"Something is very wrong here. None of this makes any sense. The riot should not have happened the way it did. It shouldn't have happened at all." Jaisann suddenly froze, realising for the first time that the monitors had been activated. Someone was already inside. Turning to Cotra, he said "What's the meaning of this?"

Colin, too, had noticed something was amiss. The palace guard had drawn his blaster. On instinct, Jaisann moved to put himself between the far side of the room and his children. Slowly, the chair turned around, revealing a figure wearing a black cloak. The intruder's face was obscured by a cowl, but whoever it was painfully tall and skeletally thin.

"Who are you?" Jaisann demanded. "Identify yourself!"

The cloaked figure said nothing, merely flicking a long, bony yellow-skinned finger towards Colin. The man was dragged up like a rag doll and hurled against a plastisteel wall. His blood stained the alabaster surface crimson as he flopped to the ground, neck broken.

Renera and Lyla screamed. Erik watched it happen in stunned silence.

"No!" Jaisann called, making to move for the downed guard.

"Please don't move," Hiram Cotra said and Jaisann was shocked to see that his prime minister had pulled a hold out blaster from his robes and was aiming it at the family.

Jaisann's jaw went slack. He shook his head slowly, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing. "No," he said, heart breaking. "Hiram, no..."

"I'm afraid so," the prime minister said with a cold smile.

"Are you going to kill us?" Ethella demanded, drawing herself up to her full, though diminutive, height. She cut an imposing figure, even when facing down a cloaked Force-wielder and a blaster-wielding traitor.

"_I'm_ not, no," Hiram Cotra said. "Baron Jaisann Meheron, third of his name, meet my ally and the architect of your line's doom."

The dark-robed figure stepped forward and pointed a long arm towards the floor. A metre-long bar of red-hot energy burst into life. A crimson-bladed lightsabre. Jaisann's blood ran cold. "The Sith," he said, breathing the word with a mix of fear and reverence. "You've allied yourself with the Sith."

The dark-robed figure took a step towards them.

"You can have me," Jaisann said to Cotra, eyeing the lightsabre. "I'll abdicate, turn my power over to you in perpetuity. You can _kill_ me, just let Ethella and the children go."

"And wait for four potential challengers to my power to emerge?" Cotra said, sneering. "I don't think so. Besides, you assume that I'm the one calling the shots here."

The Sith had continued to advance and was now within reach of the family, which had shrunk up against the far wall. Faint yellow eyes glimmered beneath the cowl.

"Please," Jaisann said, his voice cracking. "Let them go."

"It's a shame we couldn't have Nyanna, too," Cotra said. "It would have been nice to wipe you all out with one fell stroke."

The Sith drew back its lightsabre and prepared to strike.

"No!" Ethella cried and leapt in front of Jaisann, sending him stumbling. The blade cut a deep furrow in her chest. She collapsed in a heap to the floor, dead before she hit the ground.

"Mama!" Lyla cried, before a backhanded swipe from the blade impaled her through the stomach. Her eyes went dark as she collapsed. Renera never even had a chance to scream when the lightsabre cut across her throat a split second later, leaving a dark furrow as it annihilated her trachea.

Erik was left standing alone before the Sith, staring up with uncomprehending terror.

Jaisann couldn't speak, could barely move. His eyes flew from Ethella to Lyla to Renera. He didn't even notice the Sith stab him through the shoulder and then in the gut with two blindingly fast moves. He didn't cry out. The world slowly went dark around him. He saw the Sith advancing on Erik, saw Hiram Cotra looking at the bodies of his daughters with an unreadable expression and then he saw nothing at all.

* * *

Laahn Ka wasted no time returning to the residential wing. She moved through the darkened, smoke-filled corridors numbly, unwilling or unable to begin contemplating the depth of her failure. Yet more explosions rocked the palace as she moved with a seasoned, practiced grace and speed. She had to get to the Sanctum. She had to face the baron and his wife, had to contact the headquarters of her chapter on the nearby planet of Samea so they could mount a rescue operation.

The residential wing was deserted now, most of the servants and functionaries fled or in safer areas. She could hear the sounds of battle joined on the lower floors. Eventually, she reached a secure turbolift that, despite the power outages, was still somehow operational. She input her access code and a second later it was speeding towards the Sanctum. She'd lost her commlink in the fray on the roof, rendering her incommunicado.

Her throat was dry, her head pounding. She called upon Jedi meditation techniques to relax her. Fear filled her: fear for the Coalition, for the future of the family she had served, fear for Nyanna. She pushed that aside, though it was dulling her senses.

As the turbolift came to a halt, a sudden feeling of dread overwhelmed her.

The doors open and she gasped.

The phalanx of palace guards that should have pointing their blasters at the turbolifts in case, somehow, an intruder managed to get to one and slice the access codes was absent. Instead, those guards lay on the floor of the cold, functional room. Every single one of them was dead. Laahn Ka recognised their wounds immediately as having been caused by a lightsabre.

Her blood ran cold and she called her own weapon to her hand with the Force.

It thrummed to life, its blue blade burning brilliantly as she stepped from the turbolift. She reached out with the Force and she almost dropped the hilt of her sword when she felt a presence inside the Sanctum, which either hadn't yet closed or had been opened. It was a presence swirling in darkness, a singularity of the dark side. Its power and intensity threatened to overwhelm her.

"Ah," a smug, smarmy voice said from the entrance to the Sanctum. Prime Minister Hiram Cotra stepped into view and beheld Laahn Ka with a mirthless smile. "Master Jedi."

"Prime minister," Laahn Ka said, gritting her teeth. "What happened here?"

"You did," he said. "I was hoping you would arrive... such a convenient scapegoat."

Laahn Ka knew, in that moment, what had happened. "They're dead."

"They are," Cotra acknowledged. "I'm now, by right and by claim, Regent of Metastrato Prime."

Laahn Ka thought she was going to be sick. She contemplated lunging at Cotra, impaling him with her blade. She could not breathe, could barely think. "You did this. All of this. The protests, the riot, the explosion. Did you arrange for Nyanna to be kidnapped, too?"

Cotra's mouth quirked at that. "No. That was an... unforeseen wrinkle. But when the public see the bodies of the Meheron family, they will see children butchered by a lightsabre. Your lightsabre. They will be outraged. They will demand vengeance."

"I'm going to kill you for this," the Togruta Jedi growled, hate rising in her throat like bile.

"No, you won't," Cotra assured her with a maddeningly superior smile. "You see, I have an insurance policy. And here it is now."

Another secure turbolift opened behind Laahn Ka. She stepped to the side, swinging her lightsabre towards the opening door. A tall, broad-shouldered and well-muscled man stepped out, his olive skin creased with scars and ghost-blue eyes examining everything. He wore complicated robes and walked with a gymnastic grace. In his hand was an unlit lightsabre, which he activated as soon as he saw the furious Jedi waiting for him.

A crimson blade that chilled Laahn Ka to her core burst to life.

"Laahn Ka," Cotra said, as though introducing two of his acquaintances at a political function, "meet Faran Kess. Mister Kess is a close associate of mine. He specialises in mayhem and killing. An _agent provocateur_, as it were. This riot was his doing."

"Why are you telling me this?" Laahn Ka said, not taking her eyes off of Kess.

"Because he's about to kill you," Cotra answered with a sneer.

The man grinned. "With pleasure."

The Force gathered beneath him, he pounced on Laahn Ka. She barely caught his blade with her own in time, blue meeting red in a furious clash of energy. He pivoted away and Laahn Ka took advantage, pressing her attack only to have her weapon turned back with every strike. She let the Force flow through her, empowering her, filling her with light—though it was now a light tinged with bitter darkness, her sorrow and grief for the Meheron's filling every fibre of her being, driving her on.

Kess was giving as good as he got, his frenzied, uneven attacks keeping the fluid, graceful Laahn Ka off balance. He fought with a mixture of styles in counterpoint to her duellist's Makashi. It was hard to maintain her balance as she fought, harder still to get a good sense of the footwork in the relatively cramped space of the Sanctum lobby. Hiram Cotra watched the display with a fascinated gaze.

Laahn Ka dodged a blow to her left, feinting with a strike to her opponent's knees. He jumped over her blade, bringing his own around in a two-handed swing. She spun, catching it with an over-the-shoulder block and forcing the Dark Jedi's blade away. He stumbled and she took advantage, slashing for his chest. Kess, despite the rough edges of his technique a skilled swordsman, caught the attack and turned it back. The Togruta perceived a flaw, though: he favoured his left side, ever-so-slightly.

She unleashed a one-two series of jabs directed towards his right. He blocked each strike. She gathered the Force below her and somersaulted backward and out of the reach of his blade as he cut at where she'd been standing. He struck again. She blocked. She slashed. He parried.

Each time, she focused on his right side.

She noticed that he was driving her back, attempting to hem her in against the Sanctum. She didn't care. Redoubling her efforts and once again focusing her attack, she lunged. Kess easily blocked her.

Instead of stumbling away, she dropped cat-like into a practiced Makashi stance. She feinted for his right and then reversed her grip on the hilt.

His blade cut through thin air to try and block her blow.

She spun on her heel and turned around. Her blade stabbed for his left side. She heard the sizzle of superheated plasma burning away fabric and flesh beneath. Her lightsabre bit into Kess' torso.

He screamed and his knees gave out in shock.

Triumphant, Laahn Ka prepared for the killing blow. She jumped from her combat stance into proper duellist's posture, returning her grip to normal so she was no longer holding her weapon backhanded. In her haste, Kess took advantage of a momentary weakness. Despite his pain, he reached out with the Force and slammed a wave of kinetic energy into Laahn Ka's chest.

She was sent flying into the outer wall of the Sanctum. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs. Kess got to his feet and jumped for her, blade held high...

Laahn Ka caught his blow just in time. Their two lightsabres sizzled as they clashed. This time, Kess didn't roll away. Instead, he held his strike. Pressing against the blocking blade, he leant into the blow. Laahn Ka felt her own arms weakening, her own blade coming back towards her.

She heard Nyanna calling her name. Saw in her mind's eye the baron falling to this man's blade.

"No!" she roared. The Force filled her, strengthening her body. She pushed back, _hard_, and Kess lost his grip on his blade.

It felt back against him, right into his throat. Skin sizzled in the split second before the lightsabre, free of its wielder's hand, automatically switched off. He stumbled, fell to the floor. He made a gurgling noise that might have been a scream. Laahn Ka was about to deliver a finishing blow when a blaster bolt flew past her shoulder, singeing her braintail. She stumbled back, looking up to see Hiram Cotra firing a hold-out blaster at her.

She swung her blade, deflecting the next few shots. Her Force-enhanced danger sense began to tingle a moment later.

The secure turbolift car doors opened, disgorging a squad of blaster rifle-armed palace guards.

"It was her!" Cotra roared as they flooded into the room. "She did it! She killed the baron!"

The guards recognised Laahn Ka, of course. Their eyes went from the Jedi Knight to the lightsabe in her hand to the corpses that littered the ground and the wounds that marked them. She sensed through the Force that they decided against her.

"Fire!" the squad leader shouted.

Laahn Ka had a split second, less, to consider her options. One, kill Faran Kess, whoever he was, and rid the galaxy of that Dark Jedi scum once and for all. Two, try and kill Hiram Cotra and avenge the Meherons. She could do only one of those things before the palace guards succeeded in overwhelming her with blasterfire and mowing her down. Her Makashi-trained sword skills could not stand up to so many blaster rifles, let alone blaster rifles in the hands of trained marksmen, at once.

There was, however, a third option. She could try and escape.

Escape and find Nyanna. Find a way to free her, bring her back to Metastrato and ensure that Hiram Cotra and his Dark Jedi ally pay for what they did to the baron, to Lady Ethella and Renera, Lyla and Erik.

The squad opened fire. Laahn Ka reached out with the Force.

Many of the guards were pushed back, the rest lost their bead of the Jedi. Hiram Cotra continued firing on her. A burst of Force-assisted speed carried her through the guards. As they recovered, she reached the bank of turbolifts. Plunging her blade into one of the doors, she made a quick, rapid cut in a circular motion. A circle of metal fell away, leaving a superheated ring in the door. She leapt through as the guard's opened fire, blasting the door to scrap.

"After her!" Cotra roared to the guards.

One of them surged forward, peering through the smoking remnants of the door. The darkness of the turbolift tube, impossibly deep, stretched away below him. "There's no sign of her!"

"After her!" Cotra repeated. "Search this entire building! Don't stop until you find her and kill her!"

"Prime minister," one of the guards, a sergeant, began, his voice trembling. "What of the baron?"

"The baron's dead," Cotra snarled. "That Jedi bitch killed him. Him and the entire family. Now go! Find her! All of you!"

The guards, though evidently shocked, wasted no time following orders. Within moments, they had taken another turbolift in pursuit of the Jedi and were gone. Cotra turned his attention to Faran Kess, who lay in a foetal position, his hands covering the still-smoking wound in his throat.

"Leave him," a voice as cold as methane ice said from behind the prime minister. Cotra spun around. The black-robed Sith that had so recently slaughtered the Meheron family stepped from the Sanctum. "He will live. The Jedi will escape. The galaxy will believe that she slaughtered the Meherons."

Cotra's heart nearly stopped beating. He was a man devoid of scruples, something he freely admitted, yet the pure evil that radiated from the cloaked figure before him was enough to unsettle even his stomach.

"What about me?" he found himself asking.

"You are regent of the Metastraten Coalition," the Sith answered. A thin smile gleamed from beneath the cowl of the robe. "Congratulations."

Hiram Cotra felt a palpable sense of relief, even as the smile unnerved him. "And what about you?"

"I will wait, Regent, as I always have," the Sith said, the smile disappearing. "You will hear from me. And from him."

The cloaked figure stepped aside, to reveal a thin, pale-skinned boy. His eyes were wide, glazed over and empty, his hair sleep-tousled. The traumatised, broken figure of Erik Meheron followed the Sith from the chamber as though operating on some kind of autopilot, leaving Hiram Cotra staring, openmouthed, in their wake.

* * *

The smoke from the fires that had engulfed almost the entire residential wing had filled the air of the palace's pressurised dome with a choking, acrid stench. The riot was broken now, the protestors having abandoned their pickets and fled into the streets and domes of Proxima. Over the coming weeks and months, they'd be hunted, arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned.

Now, the streets outside the palace were lined with denizens of Shattermoon, citizens of the Metastraten Coalition and subjects of the late Jaissann III all. They were terrified, looking on at the palace with something akin to shock and awe. Horror suffused the air. Desperation, despair. Dozens of species were represented, if not hundreds, dressed in clothes that ranged from drab to ostentatious.

A Togruta wearing a cloak of brown was not enough to draw attention.

Jedi Knight Laahn Ka watched smoke billow towards the uppermost reaches of the pressure dome. Her heart was heavy. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She would find Nyanna. Hiram Cotra and Faran Kess would pay for what they'd done.

Looking away from the burning palace, Laahn Ka disappeared into the crowd.


	4. Act I, scene i - Nar Shaddaa

**NAR SHADDAA**

* * *

**Eight years later.**

* * *

Lilithan'cara sensed her partner's disquiet. "I told you, we never should have gotten involved with Ajuura."

"We needed the money," Rann Tye answered, shooting her an unhappy look.

"A blue milk run, you said," she said.

Rann's eyes narrowed. "It _was_ a blue milk run."

"Until the assault droids started shooting at us," Lilith countered. "I should have known a shipment of corusca gems would be more heavily guarded..."

"No one died, did they?"

She didn't answer as they entered the lair of Ajuura the Hutt.

Tye had been in a few dens of vice and iniquity in his time, but none had ever compared with a Hutt's throne room. Dozens of creatures, representatives of nearly as many sentient species, crammed into dark, smelly spaces, throwing dice and betting life and limb; snarling, growling creatures milling about in the shadows; hideous works of "art" and trophies of criminal conquest; and, of course, the all-pervasive odour of spice. Tye had been in Hutt palaces from Rodia to Tatooine, from Toydaria to the planet they called their jewel, Nal Hutta itself. None of them, though, had been quite as filthy and vermin-ridden as this one.

Ajuura was a mid-sized slug, who controlled a mid-sized smuggling cartel from his mid-sized palace on Nal Hutta's disgusting little moon, Nar Shaddaa. Rann ordinarily wouldn't have had anything to do with the creature but the job had been easy and the money good. With little more than the goods in his hand and a blaster on his hip, he stepped into Ajuura's throne room. Almost immediately, the enslaved band in the corner stopped playing and every eye in the joint turned on him.

No, he realised, not him.

_Her_.

Rann considered himself a fairly good looking man. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a mop of brown, shoulder-length hair, a crooked smile and a pair of big black eyes. He seemed a little younger than his three decades but he was a dead shot with a blaster and a capable pilot.

As attractive and capable as he might have considered himself, however, he knew he had nothing on the stately woman that had entered with him. Lilithan'cara was a Twi'lek, and she was quite a representative of her species. She came up to Rann's chin, though she was tall for her species. Her body was exceptionally lithe. Her skin was deep purple in hue and her lekku, the fleshy brain tails that protruded from the rear of a Twi'lek's skull, fell way past the bottom of her spine. A pair of long, exquisitely designed blasters sat in leather holsters at her hips. She wore a flightsuit of midnight blue that clung to her curves, contrasting sharply with Rann's red, lubricant-stained jacket and black spacer's trunks. Her lekku, allowed to hang free, were tattooed with intricate designs.

No doubt it had been a painful process, but one that had turned her into a highly valuable, much sought after commodity.

And a commodity she had been, before she'd met Rann Tye.

They'd been inseparable for more than five years now. Rann Tye and Lilith, as she liked to be called, had formed an unbreakable partnership after their unusual meeting. Wherever one was, the other was sure to follow. They'd made a name for themselves, running illegal goods and spice the length of the Outer Rim, operating from a base no one had yet been able to identify.

Rann himself managed to slip under the radar, most of the time, but everyone knew Lilith and everyone—_everyone_—stared.

Even Ajuura the Hutt himself.

The great, hulking slug, sitting on his dais at the far end of his throne room, threw open his pudgy arms and, in heavily accented Basic, screamed "The lovely hunter has returned!"

Lilth raised one hairless brow and she began to cross the throne room floor. The hangers-on and lackeys parted wordlessly for her. Rann followed.

"I'm here too, slimebreath," Rann said. Ajuura's enormous eyes rolled over to size him up.

"Yes," the Hutt said, evidently unimpressed. "Do you have my goods?"

Rann shook his head. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Ajuura. We've got to discuss what you owe me first."

"What I owe you?" Ajuura said, before mumbling something in Huttess. He began to laugh, and like good toadies the denizens of the throne room joined in. "That is rich, Tye, that is rich."

"Is it?" Rann said, unimpressed. "Look, Ajuura, you can give me the credits so that you can get your gems and I can get out of here or you can not. In which case, Lilith and I have other buyers lined up."

Ajuura stopped his laughter. He sized Tye up. "You're bluffing."

"You've played him at sabacc, Ajuura," Lilith said, speaking for the first time. Her voice was melodious and a little husky. "You know he can't bluff."

Ajuura didn't laugh, but he did favour Lilith with a lascivious glance. "If you cheat Ajuura the Hutt, you will pay."

"Yeah, yeah," Rann said, and he and Lilith shared a look. They both knew that Ajuura was more bark than bite. If he'd had ships and retainers to spare giving them trouble, he never would have hired them for this job in the first place. Rann hefted the small velvet bag he was carrying. "I've got the goods. Show me the cred."

Ajuura beckoned to a dark-suited Snivvian, who came forward clutching a rather nice briefcase. It made a hefty clinking noise as it struck the ground beside the Hutt. The Snivvian, his job done, retreated.

"It's all in there," Ajuura said, indicating the case.

Lilith stepped forward, but before she could retrieve the case, the Snivvian was back. Interposing himself between the beautiful Twi'lek woman and the case, he flashed a hold-out blaster. Rann turned to see that pretty much every standing figure in the room had a blaster out now. All of them were aiming their weapons at Lilith.

"Smooth, Ajuura," Lilith said, noticing the guns. She eased away from the case. "Real smooth. What did you think I was going to do? Grab the case and teleport away with it?"

"Wouldn't put it past you two," the Snivvian said, answering for his boss.

Ajuura laughed. His court once again joined in. "We can't trust you, Lilithan'cara. Never trust an escaped slave."

Rann felt a surge of anger. Lilith shot him a look and he did what he could to silently calm her. He saw her muscles had tensed. She hated to be reminded of her history as a slave. Hated it more than just about anything else.

"Hit a nerve, have I?" Ajuura said, noticing the unspoken exchange between the two. He laughed again, louder than before. After a few moments, during which Lilith was visibly fuming with a mixture of shame and rage, he lifted up one meaty hand and silenced his court. "Show me the gems. Then you can inspect your money."

Rann nodded, and slipped a hand into the pouch. He withdrew one smooth rock, about the size of this thumbnail. Even in the dull light of the throne room, it blazed with colour.

"Coruscas," Rann said, and flicked the gem over to Ajuura. Showing remarkable coordination, the Hutt snatched it from the air. He held the gem up to his globular eye, and then beckoned over a servant.

A Twi'lek serving girl, much younger than Lilith, her skin bright red, scuttled over. Rann didn't need to look to feel Lilith's fury. To Rann's disgust, he saw a long chain looped around the girl's neck, connected to a ring hammered into the stone wall over Ajuura's shoulder.

The girl fixed a monocle to Ajuura's eye, then hurried away.

Ajuura examined the gem closely, turning it this way and that. Rann noticed that Lilith couldn't take her eyes off the slave girl, who was now huddled in the corner. She did her best to stay out of sight. Rann's heart went out to her but he had business to take care of.

"Good," Ajuura said, after his long examination ended. "Very good. You have more?"

"Twenty seven," Rann said, hefting the pouch. "All of comparable quality. All tax free and completely illegal."

"Where did you get them?" Ajuura asked and Rann heard the greed in the Hutt's voice. He was a known gem fiend, collecting rare and precious stones from all over the galaxy.

"I have a friend," Rann said simply. "Can Lilith get the money now?"

"Give me the gems," Ajuura said. "Then your friend can collect her money."

"_Our_ money," Rann reminded him. "And don't think I'm an idiot, Ajuura. I'm not handing over the gems until I've counted out every single credit."

The Hutt considered him. The courtiers tensed, their weapons still aimed at Lilith. At long last, the Hutt let out a mirthless chuckle. "Then we seem to be at an impasse."

"Oh, for the love of…" Lilith said, trailing off. She whirled around and snatched the pouch from Rann's hand. In one deft movement, she upended it.

Dozens of Corusca gems cascaded from the pouch, landing in a pile on the filthy throne room floor. Ajuura's hands reached out as they fell as though he hoped to pluck them from the air. They shimmered, each as beautiful as the gem the Hutt had just examined.

"Mine," the great creature muttered. Though the word might have been intended as a whisper, it reverberated through the throne room, the tone and timbre of it bringing a chill to Rann's spine.

"Yours," Lilith agreed, before adding: "_if_ you hand over the credits."

The Hutt waved aside the Snivvian. He tucked his weapon away as Lilith scooped up the case and returned to Rann's side. She knelt beside the small pile of gems and flicked the case open, counting the credit chits stacked inside.

Ajuura waved the Snivvian over to the small pile of gems. The man quickly snatched them up before returning to his boss. As Lilith counted the chits, Ajuura examined the gems.

Lilith stood and nodded to Rann. "It's all here."

Rann smiled at her, thankful to finally be getting out of there. Turning to Ajuura he said "I trust everything is order?"

The Hutt set down the last of the gems. "Oh, yes. The stones are exquisite."

"Good," Rann said, and he motioned to Lilith to head towards the door. "Then we'll be on our way."

He took a few steps,before he realised that, aside from the Snivvian, none of the Hutt's courtiers had lowered their weapons. Rann's shoulders slumped. He should have _known_ this was going to happen. Should have predicted it. A double cross.

Lilith's free hand instantly flew to one of her blasters. Rann didn't even bother. He was a quickdraw, but even he didn't have a chance of getting any more than two or three shots off before being vaporised by a barrage of blaster bolts.

He spun around to Ajuura. "Oh, _come on_."

The Hutt laughed. This was a true laugh, a roar of guttural snorts that shook the slug-like creature's entire body. His fat tongue lolled from its lipless mouth, his chubby fingers clasped for purchase in thin air. "It seems you won't be on your way after all, Rann Tye!"

Rann and Lilith shared an exasperated look.

"It's two hundred thousand measly credits, Ajuura," Rann said, shaking his head. "You can afford that."

"I love gems," Ajuura said, shrugging, "but I love gambling more. I made a few bad bets. I need the cred. I want the gems. You see where we might have a problem?"

"You can keep the gems, Hutt," Lilith spat.

"Now don't be so hasty," Rann said quickly, shooting his partner a glare. "Come on, Ajuura, we can work out some kind of deal."

"No, we can't," the Hutt answered, and a titter of amusement passed through his court. He smiled evilly. "I keep the credits, I keep the gems, my boys get a bit of target practice. Win-win for us. Lose-lose for you."

"You won't get away with this, slimeball," Lilith said.

"Yes I will," the Hutt countered. This left Rann to wonder for the millionth time how the Hutts had earned their reputations as master negotiators.

"So there's no chance of a deal?" Rann asked.

"No," Ajuura said, his grin widening. The court laughed.

"None at all?" Rann said. His tone was a bit playful.

"None at all," Ajuura repeated, loving the opportunity to gloat. The courtiers were in giggles now.

"Well, in that case," Rann said, turning to his partner. "Lilith?"

"It'd be my pleasure," the Twi'lek woman said, with a wicked grin showing off her elegantly pointed teeth. Her fingers flew to a small sphere clipped to her belt.

Rann did not move at all. Instead, he drew his focus inwards, searching out what he usually spent most of his time hiding. He didn't often like to think of his psyche, but when he did, Rann pictured a planet. His personality, the ways he perceived and interacted with the world, formed the outer crust. His subconscious and unconscious formed the mantle. The core of his planet, though, was a white-hot star, a furnace that constantly burned. It was this fire he worked hard to suppress, to keep from influencing the outside world.

Now, though, he perceived it as a fire raging in his heart, in his brain. I was a fire that erupted from his pores, from his mouth, from his very fingertips into the outside world. That fire had a name, but it was a name he so rarely used. It was the Force.

He gave a cry of exertion as Lilith dropped to the floor and flung the small sphere she'd unhooked from her belt towards the ceiling. Kinetic energy rippled out from him, knocking the first row of courtiers backwards. It sent the Snivvian spiralling and shattered the glass in Ajuura's monocle. At the same moment, Lilith's flashbang grenade went off. Those courtiers still on their feet were deafened and blinded and thick smoke filled the air.

Rann took a moment to centre himself after the exertion of his Force attack, but Lilith didn't waste a second. She had kicked the case of credits towards him and dashed towards Ajuura.

"Lilith, no!" Rann called.

The Snivvian was already recovering. Grabbing the case with his left hand and drawing his blaster with his right, Rann put a shot into the Snivvian's chest by the time the man had seen Lilith. He chased after the Twi'lek a second later.

He heard another blaster shot, the high-pitched report familiar to him as coming from one of Lilith's blasters. He spun about, looking for her. He was terrified that she'd just killed Ajuura. The Hutt was a traitorous bastard, yes, but the last thing Rann needed was an angry Hutt clan on his tail. Finally he saw Lilith. She was standing in the alcove beside Ajuura's dais where the young Twi'lek girl had been chained.

"Come on!" she roared to him and he saw what had happened.

Lilith had leapt over Ajuura's tail and blasted the young girl's chain. The crimson-skinned Twi'lek was now clinging to Lilith's free hand. Rann saw that his partner was preparing to make a break for the entrance to the servant's quarters.

Rann dashed towards them.

Ajuura had recovered his sense enough now to scream "Kill them!" over and over again and a few of his courtiers were trying to do just that. Despite their valiant efforts, however, their shots were going wide.

Rann kept his head down, jumping up to join Lilith and the girl in the alcove. The three of them made for the exit, leaving Ajuura to sit in his throne room. The Hutt, stunned and with no clue how one human and one Twi'lek woman had escaped his court and taken with them one of his prized slaves, not to mention two hundred thousand of his credits, shouted "After them!"

As his courtiers, Klatooinians, Rodians, Whiphids, Weequays and a dozen other species, gave chase, he turned to look at the body of his Snivvian major domo and heaved a sigh. At least he had his Corusca gems to keep him company, and the thought of what he'd do to those two ingrates when he caught them to keep him occupied.

The tunnel to the servants' quarters was low and angled steeply downwards. Nevertheless, Lilith, Rann and the Twi'lek girl had no problems keeping up a steady pace. Rann turned, every now and then, to get a few shots off at the rapidly approaching horde that had given chase, but he had no way of knowing if he'd scored any hits.

At long last, they burst from the tunnel into a low, dark corridor, thick with the stench of refuse and too many people packed for too long in too small a space. The corridor was lined with barred doors. The tiny rooms beyond each door were too dark for them to see inside. They heard pathetic moans issue from within as they passed. Rann realised that they'd emerged not in the servants' quarters, but the detention level. These small rooms were cells, containing prisoners left to the Hutt's mercy.

"Damn it!" Rann said as they reached the end of the corridor. It went off in three directions. "I thought that tunnel led straight to the servants' quarters!"

Lilith had pulled a small datapad from a secure pouch on her belt and was examining the compact readout. "That's what the schematics say!"

"Damn it," Rann repeated, shaking his head. "Sheen Him swore up and down that these were up to date."

"Yeah, well," Lilith said as the pursuing courtiers reached the end of the corridor. "He was wrong."

"The servants' quarters are down there!" the Twi'lek girl piped up.

Rann knelt beside her. He saw that were eyes were red and watery, a result of the flashbang Lilith had thrown to enable their escape. Rann was glad for the small membranous devices he wore over his eyes and in his ears whenever he went on a mission like this. They had been Lilith's idea and they'd protected his sensory organs from countless explosions over the years. The girl hadn't had that sort of protection.

"What's your name?" he asked the girl, injected as much calm as he could manage into his voice: not an easy feat considering the adrenaline coursing through his body.

"Gila," the girl said, shaking uncontrollably.

Lilith had stowed her datapad now and was laying down covering fire with both her blasters.

"Gila," Rann repeated before going on: "We need to get to the kitchens. Can you take us there?"

The Twi'lek girl nodded. "Yeah, I can. If you can get me out of here."

Rann grinned. "I think that was Lilith's plan all along, Gila."

"She's Lilith?" Gila asked, surveying Rann's partner. "Good. I like her. But I don't just mean out of Ajuura's palace, I mean off Nar Shaddaa."

"Rann!" Lilith warned and he snapped around to see the entrance to the detention level now crowded with armed and furious thugs. Many of them were firing up the darkened corridor at their position. Angry red blaster bolts splashed against the floor, the ceiling, blew chunks out of the stone corridor walls. "I can't hold them off!"

"_Gila_, which way is it?" Rann asked, shaking the girl slightly to get her attention.

"Down there!" she said, indicating the passage to the left. Rann dashed down to scout it, only for a hyphen of supercharged energy to sail past his cheek. He spun and let off a pair of shots down the corridor. The trio of armed Weequay guards that were advancing towards them didn't seem bothered.

Rann returned to Gila and Lilith, saw that the courtiers were now halfway down the corridor and getting closer. Their covering fire was now so thick that Lilith could barely get a shot off.

"We're trapped," Rann told them. "We'll need a distraction."

Lilith reached for her belt but came up short. "I'm out of flashbangs!"

"How did you only have one?" Rann erupted, shocked. "I mean, how the _hell_ did you only have _one_ flashbang?"

"I don't know, Rann," Lilith replied, voice thick with sarcasm, "I didn't think I'd be using that many."

"The controls for the cell doors!" Gila said, interrupting Rann before he could shoot back a response. She pointed towards a control panel, inset on the wall just across from them. Rann judged the distance he'd have to run to reach it and knew that even if Lilith managed to lay down continuous covering fire his chances would be less than stellar.

Still, they didn't have any other options. He handed the case full of Ajuura's credits to Gila. "Hold onto that," he said, pressing it into her hands. "If you drop it, if you lose it, so help me I will leave you here."

Lilith shot him a dirty look but he was too pumped with adrenalin to care. The stench of ozone from the constant barrage of blaster bolts was starting to make him giddy. He focused on the control panel, cleared his mind. He allowed the white-hot centre of his being to reach out again.

A stray blaster bolt tore the panel apart.

It exploded in a spray of sparks, the lights behind its controls going dark a moment later. Rann's jaw dropped open. "Okay, then," he said to himself, "change of plans."

He lifted a hand, curled his fingers and reached out with the Force. He felt the circuitry of the console, felt the shattered controls and exposed wires. His Force-enhanced senses confirmed what he already suspected. When the control consoles of standard locking mechanisms were destroyed as thoroughly as this one had been, the locks would spring open automatically as a matter of safety. These systems, though, had been designed to seal tight the moment the console's integrity was breached.

It was just a matter of finding the right circuits and tripping them in sequence. Rann lost all conscious thought, becoming instead merely an extension of the Force. His training had been limited but he knew how to manipulate simple electronics like this.

His will had been subsumed, his thoughts fallen away to intuition.

He found the circuit and he tripped it. At once, every single one of the cell doors snapped open. His awareness expanded back into the here and now and he leapt to his feet.

"Come on!" he roared to Lilith and Gila.

He led the way, blaster back in hand; Gila followed close behind, and Lilith took up the rear, pouring fire from her blasters at the thugs that had been chasing them. Some of her blasts hit home, but the thugs no longer seemed to care: they had their own problems to deal with now.

From one of the cells positioned in the midst of their lines, an enraged Marwan had leapt into action. This creature's body was hourglass-shaped, adorned with eight tentacles, topped with a mushroom head ringed with eyes. Its tentacles flew this way and that, brushing aside blasters and slamming into limbs; where it made contact with exposed flesh there was a spark and the unlucky courtier fell, electrocuted.

An equally angry Togorian was among them, closer to where Rann, Lilith and Gila had been hidden. The enormous felinoid shrugging off blaster bolts as if they were insect bites, it tore into their ranks, snapping necks and gouging out eyes with a single flex of its long-clawed hands.

Rann knew that neither of them would last very long against that many armed beings but he didn't care. His priority was getting Lilith, himself, Gila and the credits, in that order of importance, to safety. Without thinking, he let off at least a dozen shots. The Weequay that had been blocking their way before fell. They were riddled with smoking holes.

The three kept running, not looking back. The sounds of battle and the screams of the courtiers died down a few moments later, replaced with boots pounding the tunnel floor. Rann didn't need to reach out with the Force to know that the Togorian and the Marwan had been killed.

They reached a fork in the gloomy tunnel.

"Which way?" Rann roared to Gila, but the girl was shaking. She was clearly overwhelmed by what had happened to her in the last few minutes.

"That way!" Lilith said, indicating the right path with a jerk of her head.

"How do you know?" Rann asked.

"I don't, but they're coming anyway!" she answered, and pointed with her blasters in the direction they'd just come from. She fired off a volley, keeping the first few thugs around the corner behind them pinned down.

"Oh fine," Rann spat. "Come on!"

He almost had to drag Gila after him, pulling her by one hand and making sure she still had the case clutched in the other. Again Lilith brought up the rear, keeping up a steady stream of covering fire.

"You there!" came a thickly accented voice as the three passed an intersecting corridor and Rann turned to see a Nikto guard clutching an oversized heavy repeater rifle advancing towards them. He shoved Gila to the ground as the man fired, a hail of blasterfire tearing up the tunnel wall. They'd been standing there just a split second before.

Lilith pressed herself against the wall opposite them, keeping her out of the Nikto's line of sight. She continued laying down suppressing fire, forcing the thugs from the throne room back.

"Stay down!" Rann yelled to Gila as blaster bolts continuing chewing up the space around them. Repeater rifles were deadly against tightly formed units but notoriously hard to control. Still, sooner or later, the Nikto was bound to get lucky, blasting one of them or, worse, the credits.

He tried to get a bead with his own blaster, but he could barely make his attacker out against the glow of the blaster bolts and the gloom of the corridor. He began to fire, squeezing the trigger of his pistol, but he knew most of the shots were going wide and the Nikto didn't even slow his assault. Rann searched around desperately for something to use. In this environment, he knew he couldn't count on his rudimentary knowledge of the Force. Unlike Lilith, he hadn't even brought one flashbang.

"Last time I make that mistake," he muttered to himself.

"What?" Gila exclaimed from beneath him.

"Nothing!" he roared, unable to care whether or not he was being rude. "Quiet, I'm trying to think!"

Then he saw the answer. It was clutched in one of Gila's hands. Ajuura the Hutt was a legendary miser, and he went to extraordinary and often expensive lengths to protect his credits. Including, Rann was sure, blast proof cases. He grabbed the case, pulling it from Gila's hand and throwing it towards the Nikto. A half dozen repeater bolts struck the case, bouncing off the reflective material it had been built with.

The case struck the Nikto's leg and he hobbled a bit, his repeater blaster swinging around. The bolts flew wide but away from where Rann and Gila were located, allowing the former to get to his knees. The repeater's wide bolts illuminated the passageway around the Nikto, just enough for Rann to get a good aim. He squeezed off one shot and then another and heard, with not a small amount of satisfaction, the wet splat of a blaster bolt striking soft skin.

The Nikto fell. The repeater finally stopped firing.

"All clear!" Rann said, getting to his feet and helping Gila to hers. He began to pull her down the corridor, and Lilith slipped in behind them, swiftly catching up. As they passed the downed Nikto, he moved towards them; the blaster bolt had struck his shoulder, badly wounding him but leaving him alive. Gila dealt him a kick to the face, knocking him unconscious. She grabbed the case, battered and scorched but still whole.

"I'm not letting that bastard keep our credits," Gila said. Rann blinked, taken aback by how rapidly she'd acclimatised to what was probably the most traumatic experience of her life. But then, he reminded himself, she'd been a slave of Ajuura the Hutt for who knew how long. Trauma had been a part of her daily life.

The three of them reached the end of this latest tunnel, and found themselves at yet another intersection. "This way," Gila announced, and dashed off down one of the passageways without a second thought.

A blaster bolt struck the rock at Rann's feet, and he and Lilith gave chase. He came up short when he realised that they'd lost Gila. "Where did she go?" he asked Lilith, looking around for the diminutive Twi'lek.

"She knows where she's going," Lilith said, "she'll catch up to us."

"And if she doesn't?" Rann asked, worried about the girl despite himself. If Ajuura got his slimy hands on her, there was no telling the horrors he'd subject her to.

Lilith shook her head. "We'll worry about her later."

"She's got my credits!" Rann protested, just as the lead thug rounded the corner behind them. A Gamorrean wielding a vibro ax, it snorted and rushed towards them. As one, Lilith and Rann opened fire, downing the porcine alien in a blaze of crimson plasma.

"We'll worry about them later, too!" Lilith insisted.

They raced down the passage, the courtiers hot in pursuit. Rounding a corner, they were suddenly blinded by a brilliant light. Carried by their momentum, they burst into a wide, tall-ceilinged room, brightly lit by rows upon rows of glowpanels bolted to the rocky roof high above. The stench that assaulted their nostrils, however, was even more of a shock. It was the smell of a meals cooked en masse and with little regard for hygiene. Battered cooking droids with dull plating lined sinks and chopping boards. They paid no attention to the human and Twi'lek that dodged through them.

"I can't believe that little brat actually got us to the kitchens," Rann said, reaching the far side of the food preparation area.

Lilith, however, was too busy looking for the way out. "Sheen Him said there'd be access to a balcony here."

Rann scanned the walls but saw only grubby tiles and rock, with no hint of an exit besides the doorway they'd run through originally. That certainly wasn't a way out; the courtiers were already at the door. He began to look for other options and could see only one: a filthy waste hatch, open and spewing an odour into the air even worse than that emitted by Ajuura himself.

"You've got to be kidding," Lilith said when Rann pointed it out to her.

"It's either that or get blasted by Ajuura's men," Rann said with a shrug. He and Lilith dashed to the waste hatch, just as a Rodian and an Umbaran took aim at them. The mercenaries missed, blasting apart a hapless cooking droid.

"Oh, it reeks," Lilith spat.

"It probably leads right to the sewage tunnels," Rann said.

"Hutt _poodoo_," Lilith said, sending a few shots towards their attackers. "Just perfect."

"Well," he responded, preparing to leap into the putrid abyss, "if I have to crawl through Hutt slime, I'm glad I'm crawling through Hutt slime with you."

With that, he reached up and grabbed the collar of her midnight blue jumpsuit, streaked with dirt and soot from their dash through the bowels of Ajuura's palace. He pulled her close. He kissed her, pressing his lips to hers and she recovered from the shock a split second later. She returned the kiss, hard. In that moment, blaster bolts flying all around them, he was glad to be with her. It never ceased to amaze him how powerful her kisses were.

This time, though, they had other things to worry about. Separating, Lilith gave him a gentle shove and tucked her blasters into their holsters. She jumped through the opening, disappearing into the rank maw. As a hail of blaster bolts sailed through the air towards him, Rann had no choice but to follow.


	5. Act I, scene ii - Nar Shaddaa

**NAR SHADDAA**

* * *

The fall lasted a few seconds but ended in a spectacular explosion of excrement.

For a second, Rann was disoriented. The tunnel was dark and the smell was overwhelming. Sounds were magnified in the narrow, short space, echoing and getting louder. He took a few seconds to centre himself, to pull his senses back into line.

"Rann," he heard Lilith say and felt her hand grab his. "This way."

Her Twi'lek senses were more accustomed to cave-like environments so he trusted her. He was standing knee-deep in slow-moving, foul-smelling sludge, the waste of dozens of species all mingled together. "Talk about a melting pot," he said to himself.

"What?" Lilith whispered.

"Nothing," he answered. Strangely, the guards that had pursued weren't bothering to follow them down here. He frowned. "Lilith, why do you think..."

He trailed off. Something had brushed against his ankle.

"Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Lilith answered as they emerged from the narrow tunnel into a much broader chamber. She pulled out the miniature data pad and its glow illuminated the room. At least six stories tall, with wastewater cascading down the walls from recessed sluice gates, it was an ancient sewerage interchange. They stood at the bottom, directly across from a tunnel much wider than the one they'd just exited.

"I thought I felt something against my leg," Rann said. He frowned again, as though remembering. "Why didn't they follow us?"

"The smell?" Lilith suggested. She turned the datapad back to her and began reading it. "All right, that tunnel leads out over one of the urban canyons. We can find an exit and signal Sheen Him..."

"I don't think it was the smell," Rann said. A tight ball had formed in his gut. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

Lilith looked at him, tensing up. She'd long ago learnt to trust his bad feelings. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Rann answered truthfully, "but we need to get out of here. Now."

Slowly, they waded their way through the sea of sludge. The smell didn't become any more bearable and the tension in Rann's stomach was mounting by the second. About halfway across the chamber, he heard a strange noise. A quiet groan, followed by a rumble. Lilith heard it too. She froze. "What was that?"

Rann reached out with his crude Force sense and felt a nebulous, strange presence. Right below them. "Lilith," he said, the colour draining from his cheeks. "Run."

"What is it?" she asked, eyes widening.

"Run!" he repeated, but it was too late. From the depths of the sludge, a thick, meaty tentacle shot towards Lilith. It struck her in the back, almost forcing her down. Rann caught her elbow, keeping her up. He glanced behind them, spotting a single red eye peering at them from near the centre of the lake of waste. "Dianoga!"

Dianogas were bizarre creatures that seemed to pop up wherever sentient creatures deposited their sewage. Masses of tentacles, with thick brown hides and a single prehensile eyestalk, they were dangerously territorial and definitely carnivorous. This one, Rann guessed from the thickness of the tentacle he'd seen and the distance between where they were standing and the eyestalk, was absolutely enormous. If they were pulled under the surface, they were done for.

He and Lilith began splashing through the waste, rushing for the tunnel across from them. Even though they wouldn't be safe in there, they'd at least be in a better position to defend themselves. The splashing, however, had the effect of drawing the creature's attention.

Rann's danger sense flared but it was too late to prevent a tentacle from latching onto his ankle.

He gave a shout as he was tripped. This time, Lilith was the one to catch him. Looping one hand under his arm, she hauled him up; the dianoga tugged harder, almost pulling them both over. They were about three quarters of the way to the platform. With her other hand, Lilith pulled out one of her blasters and fired a few shots into the sludge. One of them must have struck home because the dianoga gave a roar and released Rann's ankle. Both he and Lilith knew that the creature, now injured and angry, would come after them with that much more fury. Immediately, they began running towards the tunnel.

The dianoga recovered before they reached the tunnel. Three tentacles plunged from the depths of the grime, one looping around Rann's waist, another around his left arm. The third wrapped around Lilith's chest. The shock made her drop her blaster into the sewage. Rann struggled, unable to reach his own blaster. The dianoga tugged, nearly pulling him under.

"Rann!" Lilith called. She was struggling, but the creature was winning.

He cleared his mind, reaching out with his perceptions. The fingers of his free hand probed his belt and he found, in a sealed pocket, the tiny vibroblade he kept for dire emergency. He pulled it out and plunged it into tentacle wrapped around his midsection. The dianoga squealed, squeezed tighter, but Rann just twisted the knife.

The tentacle was withdrawn and Rann had enough room to manoeuvre around and draw his blaster. Though he was firing with his off-hand, he managed to pump a few shots into the remaining tentacle. It felt away, burnt through, but as he spun around, exhilarated by his success, he realised that Lilith was gone.

His heart stopped.

"No!" he roared. Adrenalin coursed through him and the Forced was lost to him, replaced with blind panic. Where was she?

Then he saw a ripple and Lilith's head burst through the sewage. She was covered in filth and only managed a desperate gasp before she was tugged, inexorably, back under. Rann considered his options: he could open fire, but there's no telling if he'd hit dianoga or Twi'lek. Half-remembered lessons came to him, flooding through his mind as panic mounted.

Then the panic reached a plateau. It levelled out, stopped overwhelming him. He knew what to do, as simply and easily as he knew how to breathe. He levelled his blaster, took a calming breath and pulled the trigger three times.

The brilliant red bolts of energy sizzled through the air and into the muck.

The dianoga heaved a cry of pain that sounded almost human and Lilith, suddenly free of its vice grip, reappeared. Rann wasted no time rushing over to her. She was weakened, in pain, out of breath and she absolutely reeked, but she could stand. At least, he realised with wry amusement, she hadn't been eaten. He wasted no time dragging her through the muck towards the tunnel. The dianoga, he could sense, was about to renew its assault.

He knew he wouldn't make it to the tunnel in time.

"Up here!" came a small voice.

His eyes widened when he realised who had spoken. Gila seemed to be standing on the surface of the muck, just inside the tunnel. A platform, Rann realised. The red-skinned Twi'lek girl was clutching the credits case and beckoning towards him.

Rann redoubled his efforts. He reached the edge of the platform and Gila helped him heave Lilith onto it. He was about to pull himself up when the dianoga's tentacles grabbed him again. He only had a tenuous grasp on the slippery ferrocrete surface. With something like resignation, he realised he had no hope of holding on. A tentacle wrapped itself around his neck.

Lilith wasn't nearly so resigned. With one fluid movement, she pulled her remaining blaster from its holster and fired a single shot. The tentacle at Rann's throat was blown apart and in a second Gila and Lilith both had helped him into the platform.

"This way!" Gila said, not wasting a second. She began to run off down the tunnel. The surface-level ferrocrete ledge lined one side of it, leading all the way into the gloom.

Rann took a second, turning to Lilith as she wiped away some of the filth.

"Are you okay?" he asked and he realised just how terrified he'd been.

Lilith detected the emotion in his words and offered him a gentle smile, deferring sarcasm for a moment. "I'm fine, Rann. Now, come on. We need to get out of here."

He didn't argue. It only took them a second to catch up to Gila.

"How did you get down here?" Rann asked her.

"I know all the tunnels," Gila said, sounding annoyingly self-satisfied. "There's a maintenance hatch that leads down here, but it's for droids. The two of you would never have fit."

"If you knew this was here, how come you haven't tried to escape before?" Rann asked; this question earned him a dirty look from Lilith.

"I've never had a way off the planet before," Gila said.

"You know what the Hutts do to escaped slaves, Rann," Lilith said and he heard the venom in her words.

"You do have a ship, right?" Gila said, looking from Rann to Lilith.

"We do," Rann confirmed. "And he should be nearby. Is there a maintenance hatch somewhere along the tunnel?"

Gila shrugged. "I don't know."

"There might be," Lilith answered for her. She was again studying the schematics on her datapad. "At any rate, we're over the urban canyon now."

Ajuura's palace was built in a modernist style reminiscent of ancient Huttese architecture. It crowned a built up city block, which, on Nar Shaddaa's city-covered surface, looked like a skyscraper. Between these built-up areas, vast canyons yawned. The floors of these canyons were home to slums and wastelands. Utilities lines, ferrying water and power into these areas and sewage out of them, stretched across the canyons.

Right now, in essence, the three of them were suspended in a narrow tube hundreds of metres, if not kilometres, above the surface of the moon.

"Activate the homing beacon," Rann told Lilith. "Maybe Sheen Him will be able to blast the line open."

Even as the words left his mouth, a single deafening roar sounded. He thought perhaps the dianoga had somehow followed them. Then he blinded by sunlight and knew he was wrong. The tunnel before them simply vanished, replaced with the murky, polluted Nar Shaddaa day. The edges of the tunnel that remained glowed red. Something had blasted an exit for them.

Far below, the Nar Shaddaa city thrived. In the distance, lines of airspeeder and starship traffic carved routes through the sky. The sewerage tunnel was connected to a thin metal line that, thankfully, hadn't been compromised by the blast.

"That was fast," Ran said, voice flat.

"I activated the beacon when we landed in the sewers," Lilith told him.

"Whoa," Gila put in, enraptured by the view.

"It's about to get even more impressive," Rann told her as the high-pitched whine of ion engines filled the air. From above, a beautiful, sleek vessel dropped into view. Seventy metres long and designed to match a starfighter for speed and manoeuvrability both in an atmosphere and the vacuum of space, the _StarHawk_ was perhaps the only _Delaya_-class courier left in the galaxy and had been in Rann's family for generations. That ship was perhaps the most important thing to Rann in the whole galaxy, with the exception, perhaps, of Lilith.

The _Delaya_ couriers were an ancient Hoersch-Kessel design, of a style out of favour in the wider galaxy for almost four thousand years. The ship had been rebuilt and modified so many times that nothing of its original spaceframe remained. From above, the ship was roughly triangular, starting with the transparisteel canopy of the cockpit an ending in a bank of twenty-one ion engines. The forward section of the ship was dominated by two elegantly curving control vanes, while the rear half was sandwiched between two sloping wings. Scorched by countless rapid atmospheric re-entries, its armour was marked with carbon scoring from hundreds of battles and skirmishes.

From inside the cockpit, Rann could make out the tiny figure of Sheen Him. A diminutive, rodent-like Aleena, he was the _StarHawk_'s technician and the final member of Rann's crew. The little tech, flying the ship, offered Rann and Lilith a wave.

"_Someone call for a taxi?_" he quipped over Lilith's commlink as the StarHawk edged slowly toward the blown-open sewerage tunnel. Gila looked on in slack-jawed wonder.

"Just in time, Sheen Him," Lilith said. "Open the port-side hatch and we'll jump over."

"Right," Sheen Him answered.

Sure enough, just in front of the rear, sloping wing, the side hatch cycled open, revealing the _StarHawk_'s brightly lit interior. The ship was now about thirty metres away from the end of the tunnel and getting ever closer.

"We're meant to jump over to that?" Gila said, eyes wide as saucers.

Rann and Lilith exchanged a look. "You got a better idea?" he asked.

Gila shook her head.

Rann's danger sense tingled. He spun, blaster in hand, to see a pair of armed Klatoonians rushing down the tunnel behind them, blaster rifles up and ready to fire. "We've got company!" he warned.

Lilith turned, saw what he was talking about and lifted her commlink to her mouth. "Faster, Sheen Him, faster!"

"_I hear you,_" the Aleena answered. "_My threat board just went red. I've got incoming hostiles._"

"Rann," Lilith warned, "Sheen Him says he's got bad guys incoming!"

The Klatooinians were now close enough to fire, but before they could even get off one shot Rann had sent a volley of searing red blaster bolts their way. The _StarHawk_ was a few metres away now. Still too far to jump. To make matters worse, a horrible groaning of strained metal began to fill the air. The utilities line that carried the sewerage tunnel across the urban canyon was starting to bend.

"We're running out of time!" Rann cried. "Credits first! Then you! I'll throw the girl!"

"I don't want to jump that!" Gila protested.

"Too bad," Lilith said and scooped the red-skinned Twi'lek up with one arm. The _StarHawk_ was about five metres away now. Putting the girl down, Lilith grabbed the scorched credits case from her hand and tossed it at the StarHawk's hatch. Her aim was true: with a bounce and a barely-audible clang, it landed inside the ship. "You're going to have to try anyway!"

The Klatoonians were renewing their assault and the tunnel was dipping lower. Soon, the whole thing would collapse and fall hundreds of metres before shattering on Nar Shaddaa's distant crust of urban sprawl. They were running out of time.

"Lilith, go!" Rann ordered as Ajuura's lackeys fired at him.

"See you soon," she said and took a running leap out of the tunnel, landing safely aboard the StarHawk. The tunnel dipped suddenly. Gila and Rann lost their footing but he managed to prevent himself from falling. Gila wasn't so lucky. She hit the ferrocrete surface of the walkway and began to slip towards the edge.

The Klatoonians weren't shooting anymore. "Be thankful for small favours," Rann reminded himself. Gila screamed as Rann lunged to grab her hand. His fingers wrapped around hers and he said with what he hoped was a cocky grin, "I've got you!"

Pulling himself up, he lifted Gila's tiny frame with him. Then, focusing as much as he could on harnessing the Force and with all the strength he could muster, Rann heaved Gila out of the tunnel. She sailed through the air, temporarily buffeted by the high altitude winds, screaming all the while. She fell straight into Lilith's arms.

The purple-skinned Twi'lek didn't waste a second consoling her, simply shoving her deeper in the ship.

The tunnel's incline was now almost forty-five degrees. Another few seconds and Rann wouldn't be high enough to jump safely to the _StarHawk_. He thought he heard Lilith shout something to him, but he couldn't hear her over the creaking the tunnel's metal supports, the roar of the wind and the whine of the _StarHawk_'s repulsorlifts. Then, at the edge of his perception, he heard the squeal of an atmosphere-bound ion engine. No, not one.

Descending from Nar Shaddaa's pollution-laden upper atmosphere, he could make out a few small shapes defying the air traffic corridors, riding needles of ion-engine efflux. The starfighters Sheen Him had warned them about.

"Rann!" Lilith's scream cut through his realisation.

He could barely hear her, but he knew she was right. A blaster bolt bounced off the ferrocrete at his feet. He spun to see that one of the Klatooinians had regained his footing and was firing once again.

A bone-wrenching snap filled the air. The tunnel rolled almost over end as one of the supports snapped. Rann hit the far wall and was winded. His eyes began to tear. He struggled to stand up again, knowing he had just seconds. He got up and started to run. His feet pounded the ferrocrete and, just as he jumped, the other support snapped.

The section of the tunnel began to fall, taking the Klatooinians with it. Time seemed to slow as he half-jumped, half-fell towards the _StarHawk_. He saw Lilith, arms out towards him. He saw Gila, staring out from behind her. He saw the StarHawk, moving up, up, up...

He realised with sickening certainty that he wasn't going to make it.

A calm descended over him, as the white hot core at the centre of his being exploded outwards. It enveloped him, consumed him. His hands, held above his head, hit something wrapped around it, and he realised his eyes were closed. He opened them and he understood. He was clutching onto the bottom of the hatch, holding on with all his might.

Lilith hands, strong as steel and infinitely comforting, looped around his wrists and hauled him on board.

He landed on the deck, hard. The hatch began to close as he fought to regain his balance and breath. Adrenalin was coursing through him. He'd been through a lot in his time but he'd never been that close to death.

He heard Lilith cry "He's aboard! Get us out of here, Sheen Him!" and felt a sudden acceleration as the Aleena followed her order.

"Thanks," he said, turning to his partner.

"You're welcome," Lilith answered with a genuine smile as she hit the hatch controls and it slammed shut. At that moment, the _StarHawk_ bucked hard to port. The lights in the corridor dimmed. The starfighters Rann had seen were in weapons range.

Instantly, Rann was on his feet and in command mode. "Lilith, get to the top-side gun turret."

Ignoring the credits case for a moment, he bolted down the corridor, Lilith and Gila close behind. They reached the end, where the passage branched out left and right. This was the main corridor of the ship, which ran down the spine of the seventy metre-long vessel. To their left was the cockpit and the _StarHawk_'s main habitable areas, including the cabins, the lounge and the small medical bay. The right branch led to the engineering areas and the pair of cargo holds. Directly across from them was the ladder leading to the two quadlaser turrets, one mounted dorsally and one mounted ventrally, which constituted the _StarHawk_'s primary armament.

Lilith grabbed onto the ladder and pulled herself upwards, while Rann turned left and Gila followed. He barely noticed the Twi'lek girl but she kept pace despite her significantly shorter legs. They reached the _StarHawk_'s cockpit a few seconds later.

A cramped but functional space, the transparisteel canopy provided them with an obstructed view of Nar Shaddaa's poisonous yellow clouds and unending urban blight. There were four crash chairs, two forward and two in the rear, each scuffed but well padded. A socket for an astromech droid, which Rann kept permanently empty, was located beside the entrance. In the front left chair, at the pilot's station, sat Sheen Him. Between his seat and the co-pilot's station, usually occupied by Lilith, was a holotank that was currently activated though wasn't actually displaying something. His beady eyes were popping out of his elongated skull as he juked the control yokes this way and that.

Lines of laser cannon fire from the pursuing starfighters stitched the sky around them.

"Good work, Sheen Him, but I'll take over from here," Rann said, his voice belying a calm he didn't feel. "Get aft and take the ventral quadlasers. Keep those fighters off my back until I get us out of the atmosphere."

"Right," Sheen Him acknowledged as he undid the chair's crash webbing and slipped free of it. "Glad to see you got out okay, Rann."

"Thanks to you, Sheen Him," Rann assured him, taking the Aleena's place at the pilot's station. He took the control yokes in his hands, felt his feet against the control panels, and suddenly it was as if the StarHawk was an extension of his body. Its ion drives and repulsorlifts were his feet, the laser cannons mounted beneath the cockpit his fists, its sensors his eyes and ears.

"Who's the kid?" Sheen Him asked, noticing Gila as he was heading aft. Meanwhile, Rann snatched his comm headphones from their place at the top of the console and fit them over his head.

"Long story," Rann said. "I'll explain later." Gila had pressed herself into the droid socket. For the first time since he'd come aboard the StarHawk, he turned to her "Get up here, Gila, I need your help."

As Sheen Him ran after, the Twi'lek girl joined Rann at the front of the cockpit. In the distance, he heard the whump-whump report of Lilith's quadlasers as she opened fire on their pursuers.

The ship quaked around them as Ajuura's starfighters scored a hit. Rann checked his monitor. There were four ships pursuing them, their sensor profiles indicating that they were were snubfighters on the smaller end of the scale. He thumped the holotank between he and Gila and it whirred to life, projecting a three dimensional bluescanned image of the fighter the threat board deemed the most dangerous.

It was a Z-95 Headhunter. According to his readings, so were the other three. Lightly armed with two laser cannons mounted on its fixed wings, powered by two fusial thrust drives slung either side of the long cockpit module, they were fast, manoeuvrable and reliable. The Z-95 had been a fixture of spacer gangs and crime syndicates for well over a hundred and fifty years, undergoing constant redesigns and re-releases.

These looked fairly new and the pilot's seemed confident and skilled, if not particularly savvy or well-trained. Rann gritted his teeth. He still had to get the _StarHawk_ through Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere, then out of its crowded gravity well and away into hyperspace.

With an array of extendable manoeuvring vanes and aerofoils as well as its exceptionally powerful sublight engines, the _StarHawk_ was a tricky ship to fly. A trio of co-functioning droid brains kept its systems in check most of the time.

"Gila," he said, putting the _StarHawk_ into a tight barrel roll and aiming it for the clouds rapidly coming to meet them, "I need you to watch that monitor in front of you. If the number on the left drops below five, I want you to tell me. If the panel on the right flashes red, I want you to tell me. Got it?"

Gila didn't answer. She was watching the view outside the canopy, Nar Shaddaa flipping end over end in front of her. Her jaw was slack and she was clearly taken with the view. Rann realised that this was probably the first time she'd ever been in a spaceship. Still, he didn't have time.

"Gila! Did you hear me?"

"Uh," she said, nodding and looking at the monitor. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Good girl," he said. The _StarHawk_ shuddered as the Z-95s pressed their attack. Keying his comm to the ship frequency, he said "Lilith, Sheen Him, keep those bastards off my back!"

"_I'm trying!_" Lilith answered, her voice frustrated. "_Those Headhunters are damn manoeuvrable in atmosphere!_"

"I know, I know," Rann said, "but getting out of the atmosphere will be no good if we take too much damage to go to lightspeed."

The _StarHawk_'s hyperdrive engines weren't quite as powerful as its sublight drives, but they gave a good point-eight past lightspeed. Unfortunately, they were finicky and prone to breaking down, especially after a rocky jaunt through a planetary atmosphere.

"_This would be easier if you let me buy an astromech unit!_" Sheen Him said, his voice high-pitched as he sprayed laser fire at the Z-95s. He wasn't an especially talented gunner but Rann didn't expect him to be: he was a top-rate tech. "_Then the engines wouldn't break down all the time._"

"No droids!" Rann insisted. The droid brains that operated the _StarHawk_'s more arcane systems were the only automatons he would allow aboard his ship and he frequently wiped their memory cores to prevent them from developing any unforeseen program glitches. It was a longstanding policy with, in Rann's mind, good cause.

Glancing at the board, Rann saw the fighters weren't exactly keeping a tight formation. He saw a weakness and immediately devised a way to exploit it.

"Sheen Him, open fire just below the fighters' plane of flight, then start weaving your way upwards. Lilith, keep your sights to starboard. If you get a bead, take your shot!"

Sheen Him and Lilith double-clicked their comms in confirmation.

He watched the monitor closely as they did as he told him. Sheen Him's laser fire began to harry the fighters, forcing them to break off: he watched with satisfaction as Lilith scored a direct hit, damaging one of the Z-95s badly enough that it began to spiral back towards Nar Shaddaa's surface.

"Got him!" Lilith cried in jubilation, even as the remaining three fighters regrouped. His guns in danger of overheating, Sheen Him had to stop firing.

"_They're still on our tail!_" the Aleena warned.

"I'll lose them in the cloud cover," Rann assured him as the StarHawk finally burst through the acrid yellow cloud layer. They pressed in around the canopy, reducing visibility to practically nothing. The high levels of chemicals in the make up made the holotank flicker.

"This muck is messing with my targeting scanners," Lilith protested.

"Rann!" Gila shouted, pointing to the number on her screen. "It's going down!"

"Damn," he muttered under his breath. "There's too much acidic matter in these clouds. It's eating through our shields! I can't stay in here for much longer."

"Don't worry about it," Lilith said. "I'll keep them off your back. Just get us off this damn planet."

Rann punched the afterburner, not worrying about what might happened when the superheated ion engines hit the chemical-packed clouds. The StarHawk burst through into the mid-morning Nar Shaddaa upper atmosphere. Up here the air was significantly clearer. The swollen green sphere of Nal Hutta hung in the distance, the system's primary blazing above it and to the right.

"Woah," Gila breathed beside him. "It's beautiful."

The squawk of an alarm cut into her reverie. Rann hit the reset button his console: the rear stabiliser had been compromised by a laser strike from their pursuers. The ship began shaking beneath him. It was only going to get worse as they climbed into the atmosphere.

"Damn it!" he cried. "Sheen Him, do you think you'll be able to lock that stabiliser down?"

"_Not from a gunwell, Rann,_" Lilith rebuked him sharply.

"I know that," he bit out. "Sheen Him, can you?"

"_Probably not before we have to break atmosphere, no._" Sheem Him answered from the turret. "_If we had an astromech droid, though..._"

"Drop it, Sheen Him!" Rann ordered, injecting as much ice into his tone as he could manage. "I'm going to pull a bit of an odd manoeuvre. Stand by and strap in."

"Rann," Lilith's tone was half confused, half concerned. "What are you going to—"

She couldn't finish her question before Rann cut the ion engines and the repuslorlifts. The _StarHawk_'s significant momentum kept it rocketing forward for a few seconds before the inertia caused by atmospheric drag and Nar Shaddaa's gravity worked in tandem to send it falling back towards the moon's surface like a brick.

"Rann!" Sheen Him and Lilith screamed in tandem as the ship fell, fell, fell...

The Z-95s overshot them, their pilots unable to compensate for the StarHawk's sudden change in velocity and direction. Instantly, Rann keyed the ion drives to full and opened the throttle to maximum. He swung in behind the nearest fighter. Its two fellows peeled off, trying to get back behind the _StarHawk_. Rann's target never got a chance to.

The ship fell right into his crosshairs and he squeezed the triggers on his control yokes. The pilot juked to the right. A laster bolt burnt into his cockpit, vapouring him and turning the fighter into a fireball.

Lilith wasted no time stitching the path of the escaping fighters with red hyphens of energy. One of the Z-95s was hit with a glancing blow, though it was enough to turn its starboard wing to slag. The other managed to loop around, avoiding Lilith and Sheen Him's fields of fire.

The _StarHawk_ began to quake even more violently as it hit the upper atmosphere. At this speed, the canopy and the outer hull were beginning to glow cherry red. Without the rear stabiliser, this was going to be a bumpy ride. The last Headhunter renewed its attack, sending blast after blast tearing from its pair of laser cannons.

"_I can't get a lock on him,_" Lilith warned.

"It's fine," Rann bit out. His knuckles were white around the control yokes. He swallowed. He couldn't pull any manoeuvres while trying to break out of the atmosphere, not without a rear stabiliser. Gila gave a little, fearful moan from beside him as the shaking grew worse. "Hold on, Gila, we're almost out of this."

The panel to Gila's left suddenly glowed red. "Uh, Rann," she said, drawing his attention to it.

His blood ran cold. That panel was linked directly to the _StarHawk_'s HoloNet feed and was only meant to go off if the droid brains detected anything to do with the ship or its crew. "Hit the panel," he told her.

She did.

The holotank reset, displaying a schematic of the _StarHawk_, its sensor profile, and grainy holoimages of himself and Gila, probably taken from hidden cams in Ajuura's palace. "Lilith," he said into his comm mic. He couldn't believe his eyes. "That slug moves fast. Ajuura's already taken a bounty out on us."

"_How much?_"

"Two hundred thousand dead or alive," he said, shaking his head. "That Hutt son of a bitch wants us pretty bad and getting out of here just got that much harder."

Nar Shaddaa was crawling with mercenaries, smugglers, soldiers of fortune and bounty hunters. That bounty had just been broadwaved through the local HoloNet, and their burn through Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere must have attracted some attention. It was only a matter of time before half the system was going to come down on top of them, lasers blazing.


	6. Act I, scene iii - StarHawk

_**STARHAWK**_

* * *

From space, the decaying urban sprawl of Nar Shaddaa looked almost pretty. The yellow-tinted sheen of the polluted atmosphere made the city lights glitter all the more, the distant shine of the Y'Toub system's primary and the light reflected off Nal Hutta glinting from the towers and spires.

A long time ago, tens of thousands of years, the Hutts had settled Nal Hutta after the ecological collapse that had devastated their original homeworld, Varl. They'd enslaved the local species and used them to build the spaceports and docks that had come to define Nar Shaddaa. Hundreds of thousands had settled the moon and billions more had followed, building the vertical city that now covered the entire surface. It had long been a hive of scum and villainy and despite occasional attempts to bring some sort of order to the lawless warren, the criminal element had won out.

That was why, as soon as Ajuura's bounty was broadwaved through the local HoloNet, Rann Tye was unsurprised to see no less than five new threats pop up on his monitor.

Ordinarily, he'd have just slammed on the afterburners, opened up the throttle and pushed the _StarHawk_ to its absolute limits. It'd take only a minute or two to escape the moon's gravity well. From there, they could punch the hyperdrive and get the hell of dodge.

Unfortunately, Nar Shaddaa wasn't only a centre of criminal activity. One of the premier trading centres and shipping ports of Hutt Space, and indeed the Mid Rim itself, the moon was constantly surrounded by thousands upon thousands of starships. Everything from stock light freighters to kilometre-long drone barges crowded the spacelanes. Disastrous accidents weren't uncommon, either, thanks to Nar Shaddaa's slipshod traffic control regulations, littering the area with debris and detritus from countless collisions. As the _StarHawk_ finally escaped the moon's outer atmosphere and burst into the vacuum of planetary space, Rann's worst fears were confirmed.

Between the _StarHawk_ and its exit vector were two spacelanes packed with traffic. Worse still: trying to avoid either lane would force him to fly a long, ponderous arc, leaving him open to attack.

There was only one option.

"_You're not going in there, are you? There's got to be hundreds of ships!_" Sheen Him said from the lower quadlaser turret, the little Aleena's voice echoing through Rann's commlink headset.

"I don't see another option, Sheen Him," Rann answered. "That bounty's already out. I've got five incoming hostiles and the longer we're here, the more bounty hunters will be getting their ships warmed up and coming after us."

"_Rann,_" came Lilith's voice from the upper turret. "_That last Headhunter is coming back._"

"Damn it," he said as laser bolts flashed past the cockpit. The Z-95 Headhunter pursuing them had a tenacious pilot. "All right, no more playing around. Lilith, Sheen Him, do what you can to turn that fighter into so much free hydrogen."

Both gunners double-clicked their commlinks in acknowledgement.

Rann could hear the distant _whump-whump_ report of the quadlasers as they Lilith and Sheen Him opened fire. Trusting his crew to take care of the Z-95, he adjusted the _StarHawk_'s course, hoping to avoid the middle of the spacelane. He flicked a switch on his console, and the holotank between him and the co-pilot's station flickered. Instead of displaying a holographic rendering of the Headhunter, it showed a view of local space.

The _StarHawk_ was a green dot half way between the curving surface of Nar Shaddaa and a long stream of blue dots, representing the spacelane. Close behind them was a red dot indicating the Headhunter and, incoming from five separate directions, were five more crimson markers.

"That's a lot of bad guys," Gila said from the co-pilot's chair.

Rann shot the young Twi'lek girl a look and saw that she was staring intently at the holotank. He couldn't help but smile, despite how dire their situation was. "We'll be all right, Gila. I said I'd get you off Nar Shaddaa, right?"

"Yeah," she answered. She didn't sound convinced.

The _StarHawk_ bucked as the Z-95 scored a lucky shot: immediately after, the fighter's light winked off the display. "_I got him,_" Lilith remarked over the comm, sounding matter-of-fact rather than celebratory.

Rann checked the damage board. "Rear shields are down to fifty per cent. I've got power fluctuations in the primary reactor."

"_Take it offline for a few seconds,_" Sheen Him said. "_We'll lose shields and engines but it'll give the machinery a chance to reset._"

"We've got hostiles incoming," Rann reminded him.

"_And if the reactor goes, we lose power and we'll be sitting ducks,_" Lilith interjected. "_Besides, the shield generators will have a chance to recharge._"

Rann checked the threat board. They were twenty seconds away from the spacelane at current speed and the nearest hostile would reach them five seconds before then. He gritted his teeth and made a decision. He slammed the emergency reactor shutdown control. Instantly, the lights in the cockpit dimmed and half the control panels went dark.

The ship lost some of its forward momentum, the last gasps of Nar Shaddaa's atmospheric drag preventing them from enjoying the frictionless environs of space. Still, they were travelling at a reasonable speed. The distance between the ship and the spacelane was still shrinking rapidly. Unfortunately, so was the distance between them and the nearest bounty hunter.

"_I see him!_" Lilith cried.

The holotank flickered as the threat board automatically identified the nearing hunter as the most pressing danger in sensor range. A three-dimensional representation of a slab-sided SoroSuub gunship shimmered into existence. Larger and slower than the _StarHawk_, its array of ion cannons and turbolasers left the _Delaya_-class courier Rann was flying significantly outgunned.

"_That's long enough_," Sheen Him piped up. "_Reactivate the reactor!_"

Rann punched the control again. To his horror, nothing happened. "Uh, Sheen Him..."

The threat board gave a squawk. The SoroSuub gunship was in weapons range. Rann heard Lilith return fire but he knew that without the main reactor powering the quadlasers she only had a few shots.

"Nothing's happening!" Rann called urgently.

"_Hit it again!_" Sheen Him insisted.

The space around the _StarHawk_ began to light up with crackling blue energy from the gunship's ion cannons and green light-scatter from its turbolasers. Rann slapped the control. This time, the lights came on to full and the panels reactivated almost instantly. The distant hum of the ship's ion engines picked up in volume and pitch and sent the _StarHawk_ rocketing forward.

"Shields back up!" Rann told his crew. "I'm reading eighty per cent energy on the rear shields. The reactor's operating at standard efficiency."

"_That gunship is too close_," Lilith said. "_I'm taking potshots at it but they're not doing anything._"

"They don't have to," Rann said. That class of gunship had been SoroSuub's top-of-the-line picket design, a common sight among system customs fleets from the Deep Core to the Outer Rim, but they'd been superseded by newer designs in recent years and had often been sold on to private buyers, who in turn sold them on to pirate groups and other fringe operators. They were designed with thick shields and thicker armour. "Just make sure that the energy scatter on their shields is enough to confuse their targeting scanners. Buy me a few seconds and I'll get us into the spacelane. They're not going to fire on us if there's a chance they'll hit those cargo ships."

"Maybe they would if there's two hundred thousand credits in it," Gila said quietly. Rann ignored her, but he knew she was right.

Lilith and Sheen Him double-clicked their comms. Rann began focusing on the spacelane ahead. Two enormous Hoersch-Kessel drone barges dominated the view through the cockpit's canopy, though he saw a cluster of smaller cargo vessels, a few hundred metres long rather than a couple of kilometres, just in front of them. It'd be easier to lose the ponderous Sorosuub vessel amongst them. Rann shifted course, opening the throttle... even as he did, needles of laserfire played havoc with his forward shields.

"What's that?" Gila cried.

Unnoticed by either Rann or the threat board, which had been focused on the enormous threat provided by the gunship, another of the hostiles had got the drop on them. It was swooping in from the starboard side, lasers blazing away.

Rann took evasive action but the damage had been done. His forward shields were down to seventy per cent and they were back in the gunship's targeting arc. The little ship shot overhead and the holotank flickered. Rann didn't recognise the stubby design but the holotank identified it as an Ubrikkian JJ3 space yacht. Someone had strapped laser cannons to a pleasure craft and decided to pick a fight with a fully-armed _Delaya_-class courier.

"You son of a bitch," Rann said under his breath, addressing the pilot of the yacht. "You're going to regret that."

"_Rann!_" Lilith's voice cried over the comm as the _StarHawk_ bucked hard around them. "_The gunship's targeting scanners have compensated._"

The rear shields were falling fast, settling around forty per cent power. Setting the ship into a rolling manoeuvre, Rann tried to get on the little yacht's rear. He could evade the SoroSuub ship easily enough but the yacht would be able to follow him into the spacelane. Given how reckless the pilot seemed to be, throwing such a poorly armed ship into combat with a far larger aggressor, Rann knew that he'd be dealing with the yacht for a long time unless it was dealt with.

He needed to take it out.

The other pilot tried juking and weaving but Rann stayed on him, dogging his every movement. His fingers squeezed the triggers on his control yokes and the _StarHawk_'s forward laser cannons flared, bracketing space around the yacht with lines of crimson energy.

Rann flicked the firing selector, linking the cannons to the trigger on the left yoke and switching the right trigger over the concussion missile launcher. Mounted below the cockpit, between the forward laser cannons, the launcher had a magazine of six missiles. The readout in front of him became a targeting scope, the crosshairs slowly tacking the weaving yacht.

The little ship was leading Rann in a wide arc away from the spacelane but thankfully also away from the gunship's firing arc.

"_You're going the wrong way,_" Lilith remarked almost casually.

"Hang on," Rann said, watching the crosshairs closely. Finally, they flashed from red to green. He squeezed the right trigger. Flying from the _StarHawk_'s launcher on a tail of azure flame, the concussion missile snaked towards the Ubrikkian yacht. The pilot swung hard to port and the missile overshot. Its proximity sensors detected this and it detonated just a few metres beyond the ship's cockpit.

The transparisteel canopy was shattered, exposing the pilot to hard vacuum. He was sucked from the ship into space amongst a cloud of flash-frozen atmosphere. The yacht, out of control, flew end over end until Rann peppered it with shots from his laser cannon. It exploded in a mushroom of flame and superheated gas.

The threat board sounded an alert. The SoroSuub gunship was back in range. Rann pulled hard backwards on the controls as he reset the fire selector, linking the port laser cannon to the left-hand trigger and its starboard counterpart to the right-hand trigger. The _StarHawk_ almost flipped over, its course traced by turbolaser and ion cannon fire from the gunship. He put the ship into a spin, ignoring Sheen Him and Lilith's protests and Gila's slightly queasy look. He was focused on getting into the spacelane and out of the gunship's firing range.

That's when the threat board squawked twice more. Two more hostiles had just come into range. He didn't have time to worry about it yet. The gunship was tracking him closely, its gunners getting better at bracketing him into a limited flight corridor.

"_My turret's overheating,_" Lilith warned.

"_Mine too,_" Sheen Him added.

"Switch them off, give the cannons time to cool," Rann told them. The quadlasers, though powerful weapons, were prone to overheating if used for too long. Rann's manoeuvring had also limited the effectiveness of the weapons, as Lilith and Sheen Him had been asked to fire on constantly moving targets while he rolled and dived and twisted.

Without the quadlasers, however, the gunship's targeting sensors would easily be able to locate them. Worse, two more hostiles were incoming and a third wouldn't be far off. Sure enough, the gunship scored a few hits.

"Rann!" Gila warned, and he saw the rear shields were at fifteen per cent. Another hit would no doubt knock them offline.

"All right," he said, sucking in a breath. "Here we go."

He opened the throttle to full and pushed the ion engines to their limits. The _StarHawk_, straining and shaking with the sudden acceleration, shot like an arrow towards the spacelane. The gunship tried to anticipate their course but Rann was too fast for the enemy gunners. Turbolaser blasts and ion cannon bursts dissipated harmlessly in space as he slipped between the two massive Hoersch-Kessel container vessels. He instantly decelerated, hanging a hard-to-port turn that nearly overloaded the inertial compensators, pushing him back into the pilot's chair.

Gila screamed as the _StarHawk_ levelled out. The enormous drone ship was now between the SoroSuub gunship and the courier. The threat board registered this change in circumstance, now displaying the two new hostiles they had to face. Rann's face fell as he realised that one of the enemy markers was in fact two small starfighters flying in extremely close formation. The other was an old Kuat Drive Yards patrol boat, heavily armed and quite manoeuvrable but no match for _StarHawk_, even with her shields drained.

The starfighters were the more pressing threat. He recognised those ships as soon as the holotank rendered an image of them.

"Lilith," he said, dread mounting. "It's the Karpasians."

A pair of Duros brothers, Arn and Trin Karpasian were ruthless hunters with a fearsome reputation across the Outer Rim. Cybernetically enhanced and linked to their unique, Sienar-designed fighters, they were deadly and efficient.

Lilith swore.

Their fighters seemed to follow the lines of the older generation TIE-class ships, with small, eyeball-like cockpit modules sandwiched between solar panel wings. Unlike the older TIE vessels, however, these were significantly larger with three canted wings, hyperdrives and shield generators. Nevertheless, they could easily outpace and outfly the _StarHawk_. Arn and Trin were hunters without scruples. There was no room aboard their ships for passengers or prisoners because they never took any.

A long time ago, Rann and Lilith had had the opportunity to watch the brothers in action. It was not an experience either of them wanted to repeat.

"Reactivate those cannons, _now_!" Rann shouted down the comm, taking evasive action as the Duros brothers came in weapons range. Needles of crimson laser energy chased down the courier, striking the rear shields despite his best efforts to manoeuvre.

A few painstaking seconds later, Lilith and Sheen Him returned fire. Arn and Trin easily dodged the blasts, one's flying echoing the other's. Rann shivered, remembering that their cybernetic enhancements linked each to the other as well as to their ships. They were a functional hivemind, sharing thoughts, perception and action.

"_They're too fast!_" Sheen Him complained.

Rann kept as close to the hull of the Hoersch-Kessel cargo drone as he could, the ship's slow-witted droid control centre barely even registering their presence. The Karpasian brothers' fighters darted away and then, moving in tandem, flitted back, flinging laser and ion bolts at the _StarHawk_.

Trying to disrupt their targeting lock, Rann corkscrewed the ship. Laser bolts pierced the ventral shields and raked the hull, burning through the thin armour plating. A panel on his console exploded in sparks and the ship bucked like a wild ronto. Sheen Him screamed over the comm.

"Damn it!" Rann called, noticing that he'd lost some of his control. They'd taken a bad hit. "Sheen Him, are you okay?"

"_I'm fine,_" the Aleena answered, "_but my quadlasers are offline._"

"The ventral power line is down." Rann announced grimly as he checked his cionsole. Without that line, there'd be no power from the reactor core to the turret, rendering it inoperable. It also meant that the dorsal shield generators were offline. "Get out of there, Sheen Him. You're on your own Lilith."

"_I'll try and keep them—ARGH!_" Lilith was interrupted by her own scream as the Karpasian brothers redoubled their attack.

Rann's heart sank. "Lilith! Hold on!"

He slammed the controls forward, sending the nose of the _StarHawk_ down towards the surface of the drone ship. The courier flipped over end. At the same time, he shunted all power to the dorsal shields, strengthening them as much as possible. A split second later, the _StarHawk_ slammed into the drone ship's hull. Panels in the rear of the cockpit sparked and exploded but the shields took the brunt of the impact, bouncing off the hull and over the Karpasians' ships.

Their fighters shot beneath the _StarHawk_. Lilith tracked them with quadlaser fire but the Duros brothers were quick enough to dodge the blasts.

It was at that moment that the KDY patrolboat decided to engage. Rann redistributed the shield energy, putting it full forward. The little, fishtailed ship powered towards them, guns blazing. He was about to spin the _StarHawk_ to starboard when the Karpasians swung into range. Instead of firing at him, however, they were cutting the patrolboat to ribbons.

"What are they doing?" came Sheen Him's voice from beside him as the Aleena entered the cockpit.

"Why are they attacking the other one?" Gila asked, eyes wide as dinner plates.

"_They don't want anyone else claiming their prize,_" Lilith answered over the comm. The Karpasians weren't pulling their punches, either. Flying in perfect tandem, they completed several buzzing passes of the much slower, weaker patrolboat. They were shooting to destroy the patrolboat, not disable it. "_They're disgusting._"

Gila swallowed audibly.

"Wondering if it's too late to beg Ajuura's forgiveness?" Rann asked.

The Twi'lek girl nodded.

"Yeah," Rann said to himself. "Me too."

While the Karpasians were distracted, Rann gunned the engines, burning space away from the drone barge. A second later, the patrolboat vanished in a cloud of superheated vapour. The Karpasians swung in after the _StarHawk_. Lilith tried to blast them, but they spun and twisted out of the way.

"_Damn, they're good,_" she said over the comm.

Inspiration struck Rann. He looked to Sheen Him. "Get on the comm station," he ordered, and the Aleena hauled himself into the seat behind Gila. "Is the sensor jammer we used on the Paradise job still hooked up to the comm grid?"

"Yeah," Sheen Him said as he strapped in. "Why?"

"I want to broadcast a full jamming signal," Rann replied, predicting Sheem Him's protests. "I know the comm grid wasn't built for that but all I need is a couple of seconds."

The tech, mouth open, decided not to argue. He did as he was told, setting to work flicking switches and rewiring the communications array. Sheen Him seemed to have magic fingers, moving with extraordinary ease and speed across the console.

The ship shuddered as the Karpasians rejoined battle.

"How long?" Rann pressed.

"Give me another second," Sheen Him shouted as a rear panel exploded inwards. The sharp smell of burning circuits and smoke reached Rann's nose. "Almost there!"

"_Rann, I can't keep them off us,_" Lilith's voice added. She sounded harried, tired and more than a little scared.

"Gila," Rann said, turning to the little Twi'lek girl. "There's a canister of flame retardent beneath your console. All you need to do is take it out, point it at the fire and click the button on top, all right?"

Gila, swallowing with fear, nodded. She reached under her console, her little red fingers clasping the cool cylinder. She pulled it free and leaned around in her chair, aiming the canister's nozzle at the fire. She let loose a spray of foam into the burning panel.

"_Rann,_" Lilith warned. "_They're firing ion cannons!_"

The ship bucked beneath him and Gila gave a cry. Alarms blared. "Direct hit," he announced, a dread settling over his guts. The holotank winked out and half of his readouts went dark as tendrils of blue electricity ran across the screens and switches for a split second. "We're losing engine power. Rear sensors are offline. I'm blind up here."

"_They're coming in for another pass,_" Lilith said. She sounded resigned.

"Sheen Him, how's that jamming signal coming?" Rann asked, hoping against hope that the little technician was finished.

"I've got it!" Sheen Him shouted. "Just say when."

"_They're almost on us!_" Lilith called from the gunner's station.

"Hold it," Rann said, and juked the _StarHawk_ to starboard. The ship sailed free of the spacelane. Now open space lay before them for about a hundred kilometres until the second spacelane that ringed their flight plane began. The Karpasians followed, getting closer and closer with each passing millisecond. "Hold it..."

A tingling sensation erupted behind the bridge of his nose. It was the Force flowing through him, telling him that this was the time to act.

"Now!" he cried.

A roar of static filled his ears as the jamming signal was broadcast on _StarHawk_'s subspace transceiver, overwhelming every comm frequency. Sheen Him's console erupted in sparks as the ship's transceiver array overloaded. The Aleena jumped away, avoiding injury. The static died a second later. Rann knew instinctively that his gambit had worked.

The Karpasian brothers relied on subspace transmitters in their cybernetic implants to communicate with each other and their fighters. It was those transmitters that allowed them to operate so efficiently and with such precision. The jamming signal would temporarily render them deaf and mute. Sure enough, he could see on his scopes that they were losing speed, their tight formation falling apart. The only problem was that the _StarHawk_'s primary transceiver was useless, rendering them incapable of long-range or even ship-to-ship communications. Only their internal commlinks would work.

"_That got them!_" Lilith shouted.

"Take your target and go," Rann ordered, gunning the engines as he aimed for the second spacelane. The _whump-whump_ of the quadlasers sounded in the distance. Checking his readouts, he saw Lilith score a few hits before the _StarHawk_'s damaged sensors lost sight of the brothers' fighters. Rann allowed himself a smile. "Free and clear."

"Not yet," Sheen Him warned, now seated behind him at the navigator's station. "I've tied in the emergency sensors. That fifth hostile is still out there."

Rann swallowed. "Right. Maintain visual scanning. Lilith, what happened to the Karpasians?"

"_I'm not sure, they were out of visual range before I could confirm a kill,_" she answered. "_I can see another ship coming towards us but it's too far away for me to confirm a design._"

"Keep your eyes on it," Rann answered. "If it gets too close, blast it out of the sky."

Lilith double-clicked her comm.

"All right, Sheen Him, what's the damage?" Rann asked, dreading what he was about to hear.

"Rear shields are gone. Ventral shields are offline. You've got thirty per cent dorsal shields and twelve per cent forward shields. The ventral guns are down, the damage to the power line means the reactor's only operating at fifty per cent efficiency. We've got five concussion missiles and the forward laser cannons are at sixty per cent power. If we keep pushing the engines like this, we'll be sitting ducks in ten minutes," Sheen Him said, rattling off the information rolling across his station's screen. "One of the droid brains was disabled by the ion cannon blasts."

"Does this usually happen to you guys?" Gila said from the co-pilot's chair.

"Believe it or not, we don't usually get shot at," Rann said. "We're couriers and smugglers, mainly, not mercenaries or bounty hunters."

"_Rann!_" Lilith's voice came over the comm. "_We've got company!_"

Sheen Him checked the visual scopes. "It's the fifth hostile! He's firing!"

The _StarHawk_ shuddered as a laser bolts stitched space behind them. A few hit home. Rann juked the control yokes hard to starboard. They were about ten kilometres from the spacelane and the distance was shrinking rapidly. Rann tried to get a look at their pursuer but it stayed resolutely behind them and out of his sight.

"Lilith, what are you seeing?" he asked, desperate to know what they were up against.

"_I can't tell,_" she answered. "_The light scatter from his laser cannons is making it hard to tell._"

"Damn," Rann said under his breath. He continued turning and twisting, but the _StarHawk_ was starting to respond sluggishly. "Can you get the rear scanners back online?"

"I'm trying," Sheen Him answered. "That last hit took one of the engine banks offline. We're down to fourteen functional ion engines."

"That explains why she's not responding very well..."

"_I don't believe it,_" Lilith said, interrupting their rushed conversation. "_Rann, this guy's flying a Surronian ship._"

"Surronian?" Rann echoed. The Surronians were a reclusive species from a planet in the Expansion Region. Insectoid and dedicated to construction and precision manufacturing, they lived in organisational groups called "guilds", controlled by a hivemind. They were renowned throughout the galaxy for their starship designs. Each vessel was unique and prohibitively expensive. Rann generally believed that one should never judge a pilot by his ship but his blood ran cold at the thought of being pursued by _anyone_ flying a Surronian ship.

"_Wait,_" Lilith said a second later. The laser bolts flashing past the cockpit canopy went dark. "_He's breaking off._"

Rann's eyes widened. They had reached the second spacelane now. He banked to starboard, skimming over the hull of a rundown-looking starliner. "Why?" Rann demanded. He hated being blind. "What's happening?"

As if in answer, the _StarHawk_ shuddered once again. Sparks fell from one of the overhead consoles.

"_It's the Karpasians!_" Lilith warned. "_They're back!_"

No wonder the Surronian had broken off. He'd seen the way the Karpasians had dealt with the KDY patrolboat and didn't want a taste of their viciousness. Rann's fear evaporated, however, quite to his astonishment. "Fine," he said, surprising even himself with the grim resolve in his voice. "I've had enough of this nonsense."

"What are you going to do?" Sheen Him said.

"I've still got some tricks up my sleeve," Rann told him. "Stand by to cut the ion engines to half power. On my mark, fire the reverse rockets at maximum."

"But that'll—"

"Put us into a spin, I know," Rann said, cutting the tech off. "Lilith, I'll take it from here. You keep an eye out for the Surronian."

"_Got it, Rann._"

"Sheen Him... now!"

The forward booster rockets, designed to allow the ship to slow or reverse course rapidly, kicked in. At the same time, the ion engines that were still operational went to half power. The _StarHawk_, caught between two opposing sources of speed, began to spin laterally end over end. Gila screamed. Rann shut his eyes, letting the power of the universe wash over him. The white hot furnace at the core of his being took over, its energy filling every part of him. For the third time that day, he gave himself to the Force.

Everything was calm. Everything felt easy, simple. He knew what to do. When the _StarHawk_ was facing fully one hundred and eighty degrees away from the direction it was heading, he cut the power to the ion engines. He was now, essentially, flying backwards.

"_Rann,_" Lilith warned, "_there's a ship coming up behind us. Fast!_"

He didn't need to be told. He already knew. He felt every contour and gun emplacement on the donut-shaped hull of enormous freighter that dominated that side of the spacelane. A Cygnus Spaceworks treasury vessel, it was designed to carry vast amounts of treasure through the galaxy. It featured overlapping shield generators, warship-class armour and array of autotargeting laser cannons. It was an integral part of Rann's plan.

The Karpasians were firing, their laser bolts eating away the last of the _StarHawk_'s forward shields. Rann returned fire but he didn't expect to score any hits. He could feel treasury vessel's turrets tracking them.

The Duros brothers' ships were so close he could almost touch them.

"Shields down!" Sheem Him cried.

Rann cut the forward boosters, firing the rear afterburners just enough to force the ship to a full stop. The Duros overshot him, flying straight into the firing arc of the treasury vessel's turrets. Crimson energy tore from a dozen emplacements, biting into the brothers' shields. Rann thought he saw at least one of their fighters explode as he reactivated the ion engines, opened the throttle all the way and flipped the _StarHawk_ over its nose. He skimmed across the surface of the treasury vessel's hull, just far enough to avoid the attention of the turrets.

Lilith whooped and Sheen Him applauded. Even Gila gave a cry of joy. Their jubilation was short lived.

"_You've got to be kidding me,_" Lilith said.

There, waiting for them, was the SoroSuub gunship. The battle they'd fought between the spacelanes had given the gunship time to fly over or below their escape plane. As soon as the big ship's gunners saw them, the turbolasers and ion cannons came to life.

Rann felt no fear. He could feel the presence of the SoroSuub gunship as surely as he had felt the hull of the treasury vessel, as surely as he felt the _StarHawk_'s control yokes in his hands, as surely as he knew his name was Rann Tye. He simply flicked the fire control over to concussion missiles. "Lilith, fire at exactly the mid point between the forward and rear ion cannon batteries," he said, his voice frighteningly calm.

She did, the quadlaser blasts streaking over the canopy and slamming into the gunship's shields. They sparked and flared. Rann opened fire with the forward laser cannons and pulled the trigger on the right control yoke five times in rapid succession. He didn't wait for the targeting crosshairs to go green. He just fired.

Five concussion missiles streaked from the launcher beneath the cockpit. The gunship's shields began to turn almost opaque. A second later, just as the first missile struck, they failed: the next four missiles struck home, blasting away chunks of the gunship's armour. A burst of flash-frozen oxygen spilled from the hull breach.

"I don't believe it," Sheen Him whispered, watching as the powerful, slab-sided gunship's weapons went dark. It began to spiral slowly, adrift in Nar Shaddaa local space. "That was the main power relay."

"It's a design flaw. The shields are always strained in that section, especially with a lot of power diverted to the weapons systems." Rann said. "One of the main reason planetary customs groups started using alternative designs."

"_Good work,_" Lilith said, "_but that Surronian's back._"

Rann swallowed. The way was now clear for them to get the hell out of the system. Unfortunately, at current speed they still had twenty seconds until they were free Nar Shaddaa's gravity well.

"I've got rear sensors working," Sheen Him announced.

The holotank flared to life. The Surronian ship, all narrow curves and sleek lines, resolved into three-dimensional bluescanned reality a few centimetres above the holotank's projector grill. Rann glanced at the readouts. It was close and getting closer, its undamaged engines giving it the edge in speed over _StarHawk_.

"Start programming a hyperspace jump," Rann told his tech. "I want to be ready to jump as soon as we're out of the gravity well. Lilith, keep shooting at him. Suppressing fire."

"_Got it,_" she answered.

Manipulating his controls, Rann set up a countdown on his scope. Fifteen seconds until they reached the edge of the gravity well.

"Where do you want to go?" Sheen Him asked.

"Doesn't matter," Rann answered. "As long as we're not in the Y'Toub system anymore."

Twelve seconds.

"_My turret's overheating,_" Lilith warned. "_I can't keep up this level of suppressing fire._"

Ten seconds.

The threat board flashed red. The Surronian was in weapons range. The board squawked a second later: he had a targeting lock.

"_He's launched a proton torpedo!_" Lilith screamed.

The holotank shifted. The _StarHawk_ was rendered as a dot in green at the upper edge of the circular view, the Surronian as a red mark at the opposite edge. The proton torpedo was a yellow arrow flying along an arc etched out in blue. Headed right for them. Impact in eight seconds...

"Do you have those coordinates?" Rann shouted to Sheen Him.

"Negative," the Aleena answered. "The droid brains are too overloaded to feed coordinates to the navicomputer."

"Then we're going to be jumping blind," Rann said matter-of-factly.

Impact in five seconds.

"If we jump blind, we might end up inside a sun," Sheen Him said, wringing his tiny hands. "Or a black hole!"

"_If we stay here, that proton torpedo is going to turn us into a nova!_" Lilith countered.

Rann simply gritted his teeth. Three seconds until impact... two seconds... An alarm on his console began to blare. They were out of Nar Shaddaa's gravity well. One second until impact. Rann lunged for the hyperdrive motivator's lever. He pulled it down. The timer on the torpedo's range tracker reached zero.

With a silent bang and a prismatic burst of light, the _StarHawk_ leapt into hyperspace.


	7. Act I, scene iv - Metastrato Prime

**METASTRATO PRIME**

* * *

The cantina was a dive. There were better cantinas, up-level, but one of the many things Luma Beras had learn from her father before his ill-fated trip to the Outer Rim; people like them were better off in the dives. The Beras family had always attracted the worst kind of trouble, and that trouble had always caught up with them at the high-stakes sabacc tables of the nicer cantinas of the galaxy. Her dad was still probably being cleaned out of that lovely nerf-hair pile carpet in that casino on Bespin.

So she stayed down here, out of the way, in the smelly dives full of the funk of a hundred different species, in the dark where the only light was ultraviolet or fluorescent, where the only way to be heard was to shout, where the bands and dancing girls came holographic and pre-recorded, and where, most importantly, the drinks were cheap and free-flowing. Of course, the drinks weren't for her. She was young, but she was old enough to know not to get intoxicated in a place like this.

Luma, a short, dark-haired young woman with a round face and blue eyes, wore nondescript clothes in shades of brown: a tunic, leggings and a utility belt. She kept one hand under the table on the grip of her blaster, and the other on the table; she kept both eyes on the drunk Chevin sitting across from her.

"These days," the elephantine, blue-skinned man was saying, shaking his long, wrinkled snout, "there's no money to be made."

"No," Luma agreed, not sure what he was talking about.

"No money at all. I mean, I run guns most of my life. There's a petty little war on the Out Rim, they give me cred, I give them dead, right? Not no more. Now, the Empire's horning in on all my revenue streams. I ain't got nothing! Gun running ain't worth a damn."

"What are you doing on Metastrato, then? No guns to run here." Luma asked, and looked over his shoulder. She signalled a passing serving droid, with blast-resistant plating, she noted, to refill the Chevin's drink.

"Oh ho, plenty else to run."

"Oh?"

The Chevin's enormous brow furrowed even further. "Plenty else indeed. Not much else to tell to you, though."

"Oh, come on," Luma said, leaning forward. "There's got to be something. Look, have another drink."

"You're not SCI, are you?" the Chevin asked, but he downed his drink in one gulp anyway. "Pretty young humans like you, place like this, old Chevin gun runner like me... you're all SCI."

"Sector Central Intelligence?" Luma asked with a laugh. "I wish. Do you know how much those spooks get paid?"

The Chevin laughed, a deep honking noise emanating from the very back of his gigantic snout. "True. But of course, if you were SCI, that's what you'd say to throw me off the track. I ain't a newborn, you know."

"You're a Chevin," Luma reminded him, "I couldn't outsmart you if I tried."

It sounded like flattery, but it was probably true. The Chevins of Vinsoth were incredibly intelligent, even with their systems flooded by untold amounts of intoxicants. The creature's eyes, clouded by the night, suddenly brightened. "So you know my kind."

"I've been to Vinsoth, actually."

"Have you now? And how did you manage that? Metastraten girl like you, Metastrato's got closed borders for citizens. Keeps them out of the galaxy-at-large. Keeps us Chevins in the spaceports."

"I'm not Metastraten," Luma said. "Thank the stars. Nope, high-flying Coruscanti girl, I am."

"You don't got a Coruscanti accent. You got Out Rim speech on you."

"Can't get nothing by you Chevs," Luma said with a grin. "I was born on Malastare, had my misspent youth on the Outer Rim with my father, ended up back on Malastare when my dad got his brains blasted out."

The Chevin gave an almighty sniff. "Honest."

"Nothing secret there to keep hidden, friend." Luma said, were grin turing into a genuine, if somewhat sad smile. She'd come to terms with the grief that had gripped her after her father's death. That didn't mean that, every now and then, she didn't feel a stab of yearning for the years they could have had together.

"How did you get here?" the Chevin asked, examining her closely.

Luma sighed. "It's a long story."

"We've got time," he answered with a shrug of his huge shoulders.

"I guess we do," Luma agreed, heaving a sigh. "I took on a shipment of premium-quality nerfsteaks. Well, that's what the vendor told me. He said he had a buyer on Metastrato and would pay for all the customs and excise fees. Point is, I got here and there was no buyer. No money for the customs and excise fees. I've been stuck here for six weeks now. So why don't you tell me. What's there to run on old Metastrato Prime?"

The Chevin nodded sagely, as if it was a story he'd heard many times before. Luma realised that it probably was. "To run? All sorts of things. Spice, always. That's a life sentence if you're caught. You heard of Rheen?"

Luma shook her head.

"Rheen's a jungle world, thirty light years away. Prisons there are harshest in the sector. Automatic life sentence if they catch you smuggling spice, not that it'll matter; a life on Rheen's a month or two at best."

Luma chuckled darkly. "Not spice then."

"Make a healthy living smuggling special food in. Hutts'll pay a pretty decicred for a few of the more scrumptious morsels." The Chevin paused. Then he laughed. "But you've tried that already and it didn't exactly work, did it? You a new smuggler or something? Why ask me for advice?"

"I'm a legitimate businesswoman, sir," Luma said, putting on an air of offense. "Not a smuggler by any means."

The Chevin was unimpressed.

"Fine. Listen, I took a job. It didn't work. Do I'm stuck here until I can rummage up enough cred to pay the fees and I don't know a single damn thing about this sector."

The Chevin burst into uproarious laughter. He slammed one heavy hand down on the table, and Luma fumed. The Chevin was right, of course, it was hilarious, but Luma wasn't about to laugh. Finally, the Chevin caught a hold of himself. "Listen, maybe I know what you can do."

"I'm listening," Luma assured him.

"People want to get out. The government closes down the borders, hunts of dissidents... there's always someone looking to get free-and-clear. Ship like you've got… you've got a ship, right?" Luma nodded. "Ship like you've got, I'm sure you can fold someone in. They'll pay a fair amount to get out of the sector. Away from the SCI, away from the Navy, from sector crime bosses, from police. From our great and glorious regent."

The Chevin jutted his head towards one of the large holoscreens that dominated the other side of the cantina's main room. Amongst the images of sporting events on far-away worlds was a single screen displaying a news program. The man, greying and gaunt and dressed in a military-style uniform bisected with a purple sash, was standing among brown-skinned, slug-like aliens. He was smiling, his eyes glittered with the light of a powerful man who had scored a great victory. The caption identified him as Regent Hiram Cotra and his alien friends as the Ampiri.

Luma had become very familiar with the man's visage in her six weeks spent on Metastrato. A bustling metropolis though the city of Segreddo may have been, she was a girl of the galaxy. She wanted off this rock, and _fast_.

"I'm sure I could figure out a way to help those poor men, women or whatever in need," Luma said, with a small smile. Another lesson her father had worked hard to drill into her: play your cards close to your chest.

The Chevin nodded once, gravely. "Good. Maybe I'll hook you up. You be in town tomorrow?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Luma admitted.

"I find someone, I want cut."

"You find me someone, friend, you'll get your cut," she assured him, working to keep the glee off her face. Keep clam, keep cool, her father had told her.

With that, the Chevin pushed himself out of his seat. "I'm Phonn. I'll come by tomorrow night, you be here."

He shuffled away, leaving Luma Belas alone at her table. On his way out, squeezing between a knot of Quarren and a burly Besalisk, he bumped into a Dug; the small four-limbed creature apologised cordially, and leapt on its powerful forearms over the Chevin.

Luma watched the elephantine Phonn depart, and then nodded to the Dug.

How did that go?

"Fine," Luma said, keeping to Basic. "Otroota, were you watching the whole time?"

The Dug, Otroota, answered again in his own language. Didn't take my eyes off the two of you, Cap.

"Really? Because I thought I saw you eyeing up a pretty young fem or too…"

Can't blame a Dug for looking. Otroota used his hind legs to drop a parcel on the table. Lifted this off of your Chevin friend as he left.

"Just can't help yourself, can you?" Luma asked, unwrapping the thick material. It was a wad of credits. She grinned. "Well, this isn't bad. Not enough to get us out of the sector, but not bad. When I meet him tomorrow, you stay out of the way, okay? Don't want him putting two and two together."

Otroota nodded, offering a grin. Neither do I.

She looked around the cantina, at the patrons and holorecordings and she suddenly was struck by a wave of sadness. Staying on Metastrato Prime was slowly killing her. "Come on, let's get back to the ship."

* * *

The cantina was located in the lower depths of Lion's Gate, the largest spaceport on Metastrato Prime. Thousands of ships came and went every day, and it covered a vast section of Metastrato's capital city, Segreddo. An economy all its own had appeared in Lion's Gate. Markets and bazaars, featuring goods that couldn't get past the spaceport's stringent customs and security service, flourished in the lower levels. Shops had been opened, some of which had been in operation, run by the same family, for centuries. Cantinas, gambling dens, even a bank and a swoop track. Their position in the legally murky bounds of the spaceport avoided the taxes and regulations of the local authority.

Luma's starship, the Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-4500 light freighter ___Belas Scorcher_, was landed at Docking Bay H-32-D. H-32 was a horse-shoe shaped section of six docking bays built for smaller freighters or star yachts, and every single one of the berths was full. Located eight levels deep, beneath Levels A through G, each consisting of up to a hundred sections containing landing bays of varying designs and sizes. They ranged from small enough for a ship like the Scorcher to large enough to house multi-kilometre tankers and starcruisers.

As they passed, Luma playfully saluted the Ishi Tib standing guard outside Bay C. The Tib, carrying a light repeating blaster and wearing a permanent scowl on his beaked face. ignored them both and Otroota had a few choice epithets for the squat green alien but wisely kept them to himself until they were out of earshot. The Tib had been on Metastrato even longer than Luma and Otroota, though she doubted they were stuck the same way she and her Dug co-pilot were. She suspected, in fact, that they were the lackeys of a crime boss somewhere in Segreddo, ready to lift off whenever they were called upon.

Luma waved her spaceport visa over the scanner, and the door to H-32-D slid open. Beyond lay a bare expanse of metal, upon which sat her father's beloved starship. It was obviously Corellian, from the saucer shaped hull to the forward cargo loading prongs and the port-mounted cockpit-module. The entire craft was more elongated than older CEC designers, with a narrower span but a deeper draft. The hull was burnt and pockmarked by thousands of re-entries and micrometeorite strikes, not to mention a fair share of dogfights. A pair of two-barrelled laser cannon turrets were bolted to the sides.

Not the fastest ship in the galaxy, nor the strongest, but it was reliable enough. It had been her father's craft for decades before she'd inherited it.

Luma input the codes in the loading ramp and with a hiss it lowered. Otroota leapt ahead of her inside, and Luma waited for a moment. The air inside was slightly stale; though many of her passengers couldn't wait to get out into the fresh air of a planetary atmosphere, to her it smelt like home. Still, she'd been stuck on Metastrato Prime for weeks now and if the Chevin could offer her a way off this rock, she'd have to take it.

Heaving a sigh, she boarded her ship and headed for the lounge. Like the cabin, the lounge was sparsely furnished; a few threadbare rugs over the decking, a dejarik table that didn't work and a trio of old starfighter ejector seats she'd converted into furniture.

Otroota followed close behind, the Dug babbling on about something.

The two of them had grown up together on Malastare. Otroota's father, an accountant for the Grab, had gotten into a spot of bother with Imperial tax authorities and Luma's dad had helped him escape to the Outer Rim. Old man Otroota was still pottering about on Tatooine, helping Hutt gangsters get out of their income taxes. The younger Otroota, however, had been left without a home and without much in the way of prospects. Luma's dad had offered him a job on the _Scorcher_, and she'd been unable to shake him since. Not that she minded, of course. Her father was long dead, and Otroota was the closest thing she had to a family.

In the lounge, she knelt and moved aside one of the rugs. The deckplate beneath it seemed more worn than the others. Carefully, she felt along its edges until she located a recessed button. Pressing it, she felt the deckplate lift up. Tucking her fingers beneath the thin sheet of metal, she moved it aside to reveal a small, black lock box.

Otroota sat on his forehands beside her. They were true companions. Each knew the other's access codes and neither was concerned that the other would betray them.

Luma touched the box, and a small keypad seemed to melt out from its surface. The box wasn't metal, but an organic stone developed by craftsmen on the planet Kailion, way out in the Outer Rim. The material was rare, all but unheard of, and invisible to scanners. Beneath the deckplate, it was have been invisible. It was, perhaps, the most expensive thing on the _Scorcher_, though Luma had never for one moment considered selling it, even to get them out of their current predicament. It was far too valuable.

She split the pile of credits Otroota had given her, and handed a half of one of the piles to her Dug copilot. "There," she said, with a grin. "Go buy blasters or fems or whatever it is you Dug do."

The Dug saluted her playfully, and scampered back out of the hold. Will do, Luma!

"And stay away from those Ishi Tib!" she called after him. Otroota was as rambunctious as any young Dug and six weeks on Metastrato had driven him stir crazy. He'd already picked a fight with the Ishi Tib. The last thing she needed was to fork out the credits to pay for a med centre visit for her co-pilot. Again.

She pocketed the other half of the now considerably reduced pile, and slid the remainder into the lock box. She sealed the box, replaced the deckplate and made sure to cover it with one of the rugs.

Sighing, Luma stood and headed to the cockpit.

Slumping into the pilot's chair, she stared out of the transparisteel canopy. Beyond the rim of the docking bay, she saw the night sky over Segreddo City. Very through stars managed to shine through the enormous city's light pollution, but she saw the fist-sized chunk of cold grey stone that was the Shattermoon. A long time ago, hundreds of thousands if not millions of years before humans had settled Metastrato, about a third of the moon had been blown apart by a comet strike. The cloud of debris had maintained a fairly stable orbit around the moon and revealed ores and metals both rare and easily accessed. That moon had been the source of Metastrato's wealth for millenia. She'd become far too used to the sight of that satellite over the last few months and she'd be glad to leave it, and this forsaken world, far behind.

Lost in thought, minutes became hours and eventually she fell asleep.

Snoozing lightly, she didn't notice the door to the landing bay slide slowly open. It wasn't until the _Scorcher_'s proximity alert beeped that she realised someone was approaching the ship. She jerked up, looking out the cockpit canopy. Her blood ran cold.

The repeater blaster-wielding Ishi Tib that had been guarding Bay C was walking towards the Scorcher, followed by three of his fellows. The aliens were natives of an oceanic world on the Mid Rim had peering black eyes on prehensile stalks, their skin was various shades of mottled green. A common sight throughout the galaxy, they still shouldn't have been in H-32-D.

Luma's hand flew to her blaster and tightened around the grip. All vestiges of sleep were wiped from her mind as adrenalin began to pump through her veins.

The Tib bringing up the rear, a hulking example of their kind, lifted a meating hand and pointed towards her, having seen her in the cockpit. Her eyes widened and she dropped to the deck, pressing her back against the wall. Too late, she knew. They'd seen her.

"Girl!" a voice roared from the hangar. "Get out here!"

Luma closed her eyes and sighed in exasperation. She stood. The Ishi Tib had spread out, forming a loose semi-circle around the port side of the cockpit. Their positions allowed them to keep an eye both on the cockpit and the boarding ramp.

She hoped against hope that Otroota had remembered to close it.

"Girl!" the lead Ishi Tib repeated, his eyes trained on her. "Get out here! Now!"

This was really getting her hackles up. She flicked a button on the console, activating the Scorcher's loudspeaker. Her voice echoed through the docking bay as she said "Why should I?"

The Ishi Tib traded annoyed glances. The leader opened his beak in what was a display of threatening dominance for one of his. "Because if you don't, we'll have to come in there."

"I'd like to see you try," Luma answered before she could stop herself.

At this, the Tib laughed, tittering amongst themselves in Tibanese. "It's going to be pretty easy," the big bruiser amongst them said, "with your boarding ramp lowered."

Luma's eyes widened. "Damn you, Otroota," she said under her breath.

The Ishi Tib were watching her as she weighed her options. There wasn't a control on the bridge that let her close the boarding ramp remotely. She'd have to run back down the corridor, through the lounge and to the ramp's interior controls in order to shut it. The Tib would know she was on the run and presumably make a break for the ramp. They were squat, heavy creatures, sure, but she didn't fancy her odds. Especially as heavily armed as they were: the largest one had two blaster pistols strapped to his belt, two more carried military-grade disruptor rifles and, of course, the leader still had his repeating blaster.

After a long pause, during which the Ishi Tib grew more and more antsy, she finally said "What do you want?"

They did their version of a grin. They'd heard the resignation in her voice. They knew they had her. "We want your Dug," the leader said.

Luma groaned inwardly. "What'd he do now?"

"Do?" the bruiser said with a laugh. "He didn't do anything. We just want to have a chat."

"He's not even on the ship." Luma said. "He went off a few hours ago."

They talked amongst themselves in Tibanese for a few seconds. "We don't believe you," the leader said at last. Luma sighed. This was quickly becoming a comedy of errors. She wondered how long it would take for spaceport security to arrive if she keyed the commlink for an emergency alert. No doubt the Tib would find out quickly, though. Besides the landing bays on level H were far enough away from the security HQ to be positively remote. Not for the first time, she cursed just how large Lion's Gate was.

She was torn. Go outside and face four armed Ishi Tib by herself or let them aboard the ship to find out for themselves that Otroota really wasn't aboard. Seconds dragged by again.

"Girl!" the leader roared.

She was sick and tired of that particular title. "_What?_" she shouted into the loudspeaker. The single word echoed loudly through the landing bay. The aliens outside winced at the noise.

All of them hefted their weapons. "Don't disrespect us," the big one said, pulling his blasters from their holsters. He waved the two disruptor rifle-wielding Tib forward and they began to move towards the boarding ramp.

Luma felt like she was deflating. Now she'd stepped in it. She stood up and headed aft to meet them. Sure enough, the boarding ramp had indeed been left down. Once again cursing her erstwhile Dug companion, she saw the Ishi Tib reach the bottom of the ramp.

They pointed their disruptor rifles at her. "Don't move," one said, the clicking timbre of its voice making her swallow involuntarily.

"Fine," she sighed, putting her hands up, palms forward.

"Take your blaster out of its holster," the other said, making a noise that sounded like some kind of sniff. "Thumb and forefinger only. Put it on the deck and kick it towards us."

Reaching down, she took the grip of her blaster between her thumb and index finger. She lifted it slowly out of the leather pouch, set it on the ship's scuffed deckplate and kicked it over to the Ishi Tib. One of them scooped it up and they finally entered the ship. One of them stepped towards her, pressing her against the bulkhead. The other two aliens, the leader and the bruiser, entered the ship. The leader sniffed the air and seemed disappointed as his subordinate handed him Luma's blaster.

Luma didn't know much about the Ishi Tib olfactory sense, but she guessed that he couldn't smell Otroota.

"Search the ship," he told his posse. "I'll keep an eye on the girl. Make sure the Dug isn't here."

She remained silent as the Ishi Tib lumbered into the ship. It was with a creeping sense of dread that she heard them overturning furniture in the lounge and the tiny crew cabins. "This can't just be about Otroota trying to pick a fight with you," she said, trying to stare down the alien. If he noticed her attempt, he didn't seem to be fazed by it.

Instead, he was studying her blaster. "A BlasTech GL-42."

"That's right," she said hesitantly, not sure where he was going with this.

"Not much of a weapon."

Luma's jaw dropped. She was almost offended by the Ishi Tib's frank assessment but mostly she was just surprised that he'd given it at all. "Uh... sorry?"

"This is a Czerka Arms Maw-16 light repeater," he said, hefting his weapon. It was an impressive blaster, scuffed but well maintained. Civilian ownership was illegal on most civilised planets. That, Luma realised, was the Ishi Tib's point. He and his buddies had access to military-grade, illegal weapons and we're afraid to carry them in public. The underlying message was clear, even to her. _Don't mess with us. We've got guns and friends in high places._

Luma swallowed. "Right. Okay. I've got it."

"I heard your Dug friend's little comments when you walked by our bay earlier this evening," the Ishi Tib's voice went up an octave or two. The effect was quite chilling. He leaned closer to Luma, his hot breath carrying faint traces of fish smell. "No one insults Klee Baka's crew, all right?"

She would have laughed at how pathetic it all was, were she not in the middle of a shakedown. "Yeah," she said, nodding. "I get it. I'll let Otroota know."

The Ishi Tib quirked his beak in something like a smirk. "You tell that little Dug that if we see him near our dock again, we'll remind him."

The thug's fellows had rejoined them in the corridor. "No sign of him," the bruiser announced.

"No? You're sure? Oh well then." the leader said with a little shrug. He handed Luma back her blaster, after removing the powerpack. "Don't want you shooting me in the back as I walk away, do I? Let's go, boys."

With that, the four Ishi Tib retreated from the _Beras Scorcher_. Luma slumped against the bulkhead, her hands automatically slapping the lock mechanism. As the boarding ramp shut behind her unwanted guests, she realised she was shaking, wondering what the hell had just happened. She'd just survived her first shakedown and as she made her way into the ship's habitable sections, she saw the rugs had been pulled up, the ejector seats she'd fashioned into chairs tipped over. The cabin wasn't much better, her clothes strewn all over the bed and the desk. The medbay's scant contents were scattered across the floor.

It'd take hours to clean all this up.

One thing was clear: she and Otroota were making enemies. They needed to get off Metastrato Prime as soon as possible. Whatever job Phonn brought her, Luma resolved, she was going to take it.


	8. Act I, scene v - Regency

_**REGENCY**_

* * *

The decking beneath the soles of his boots trembled as the ship reverted to real space. Immediately, the thick sheets of durasteel that blocked out the unnatural swirl of hyperspace lifted and a vista of blue-black velvet punctured by pinpricks of starlight stretched out before him.

Hiram Cotra could barely resist a satisfied smile. From his vantage point, standing at the fore of his flagship's bridge he could see the whole of the blade-shaped vessel before him, almost two kilometres long. Bristling with turbolaser batteries and ion cannon emplacements, crewed by seven thousand beings and driven through space by an enormous bank of no less than thirty-six sublight drives and two independent fusion cores, his vessel, the ___Regency_, simply screamed power.

The hull before him was painted glossy black, and running lights glinted from the surface; it wasn't a quiet ship, but then it was never meant to be.

It was one of twelve such vessels prowling the spacelanes of the Metastrato Sector, ___his _sector, twelve symbols of the military might of his government. Twelve instruments of the power vested in his hands.

As the vessel turned, a muddy green-brown sphere splattered with white and grey came into view, the size of a dinner plate. Metastrato Prime. Once it had been another of the economic powerhouses of the Colonies region of the galaxy, trailing behind Commenor and Loronar. Now, it was a fortress world, lying at the heart of its own fief. Twenty-seven worlds and more than a hundred billion beings looked to Metastrato Prime for leadership.

Hiram Cotra's lips curled upward. The sector was in permanent lockdown, its borders tightly controlled. Every known hyperspace route had been seeded with gravity mines, bringing any would-be interlopers out of lightspeed with a forced realspace reversion, where one of the sector's bevy of fast, heavily armed customs patrol ships would arrest the border violators. Metastrato was his world at the heart of his little kingdom, a kingdom unsullied by the conflict that gripped the broader galaxy. Emperor Krayt and his Imperial minions had accepted the Metastraten Sector's territorial sovereignty and the Galactic Alliance, fragmented and broken as it was, had no interest in his machinations. This swathe of space was his.

Well, almost, a small voice in the back of his mind reminded him. Unbidden, thoughts of that night eight years before when he'd seized power from the weak Meheron dynasty. He was well aware that there were threats to his power. The Dark Lady of the Sith he'd joined forces with to butcher the Meheron family had vanished soon after that night, though she maintained contact with him. She'd somehow avoided every effort he'd made to find her and seemed utterly unflappable. Worse still, she had control over Erik, the youngest child of the Meherons. The boy would be turning eighteen soon. Every few months, a short message was recorded by that Sith witch and broadcast over Metastrato's local HoloNet, reminding the populace that the Meheron line really was unbroken, that Hiram Cotra really was just a regent, that one day, one day soon, everything would return to normal.

Worse still, neither Laahn Ka nor the kidnapped daughter of Jaisann and Ethella Meheron had ever been located. Even though the Samean Jedi, that bastion of Meheron support, had been wiped out the day after the murders, he'd never felt entirely safe with those two unable to be found. Cotra's plan had worked perfectly: the public had seen the lightsabre-mangled bodies of the Meheron family and been all-too-willing to believe that the Togruta Jedi had been responsible. The outrage had been widespread and irreversible.

Under Cotra's orders, the Metastraten military had attacked the small, ancient Jedi Temple on Samea, the inhabited planet closest to Metastrato, that had been the headquarters of that small, dedicated chapter of the broader Jedi Order. There'd been no survivors of the lightning-fast strike, but Laahn Ka's body hadn't been found in the ruins.

Worse still, Nyanna Meheron had never been found. If she lived, she represented the greatest threat to Cotra's regency. According to the law of the barony, a would-be heir ascended to a vacant throne upon their twenty-first birthday. Nyanna's was just a few months away.

He caught his reflection momentarily in the transparisteel viewport as the ship turned.

He wore a black uniform, cut as an admiral's but lacking the rank insignia and campaign commendations, with a high collar and a deep purple sash over his shoulder. He had always been a tall man, though perhaps too slender, almost spindly. He was armed, as always, with a mostly decorative and thoroughly impractical hold-out blaster displayed prominently on his hip. It was the same blaster he'd used to threaten the Meherons so long ago. He stood with practiced dignity and politician's poise; he was a polished leader, as fit for the holocams as for the bridge of a warship.

"Regent?" came the purposeful voice of the ___Regency_'s captain.

Cotra enjoyed hearing the name he'd picked out for his flagship, a reflection of his own title as Regent of Metastrato Prime. A title that afforded him political domination over the entire sector. An affectation, yes, but one he could afford and one he thoroughly enjoyed.

He turned to see the captain, a blonde woman of about forty with the taut bearing of career navy that did nothing to downplay her looks, stride towards him, datapad in hand.

Over her shoulder, he saw the bridge of the ___Regency_. To either side of the main deck rose two tiers of consoles, a black uniformed being behind each one. The main concourse was mostly clear of crewers, save for a few higher-ranking officers clustered around the massive holoprojector bay in the centre, which was currently displaying a three dimensional hologram of Metastrato, with hundreds of small red dots buzzing about it, each with its own readout flowing in place beside it.

It was a full tactical readout, using local satellites to plot the course of every ship in orbit of the planet, and recognise and keep track of any potential threat.

Cotra was standing on the viewing platform at the very end of the bridge, in front of the semi-circle of stations where the pilots and navigators were working. There were droids, too; astromechs plugged into stations running calculations, protocol units strolling between consoles carrying orders. He was gratified to see it all running like clockwork.

"You train your people well, Captain Lorda."

Lorda, still a few steps away, blinked. "Thank you, Your Excellency."

"No thanks required, Captain. What have you brought me?" he reached out for the datapad, and Lorda handed it to him.

"The results of the attack on the pirate base in the Ampiri system. Captain Hundren of the ___Lightning _reports that the enemy has been routed, with our losses well below expectations."

"Excellent," Cotra said, taking the datapad and scanning through it. "Any problems with the Ampiris?"

"No, Your Excellency," Lorda replied. "I think your diplomatic visit last week resolved any lingering tensions. Though, to be frank, I doubt there would be a problem, with a ship like that in orbit."

Cotra chuckled. ___Lightning _was one of the ___Regency_'s sister ships, tasked with ridding the sector of any remaining undesirable elements; smugglers, pirates, scavengers. The Ampiri were a recent addition to the Metastraten Coalition and a somewhat reluctant one. Though the ruling class had completely acquiesced to the constraints of membership, much of the population had expressed distaste for the idea.

A show by a ship like ___Lightning _at the head of a full task force of four destroyers, two smaller cruisers, an assault carrier, a flotilla of gunships, corvettes and support craft as well as three full wings of starfighters operating at the edge of the system would most likely put have paid to any notion of resistance.

Cotra marvelled at just how predictable interstellar politics could be. Like clockwork, he mused to himself, enjoying his little joke.

"However, Your Excellency," Lorda continued, "I believe that this may not be the last pirate presence operating inside our borders."

"Oh?" Cotra asked, lifting an arched eyebrow.

"No, sir. If you'll accompany me to one of the stellar cartography stations…"

Cotra nodded, and followed the captain as she crossed the bridge, the heels of her boots clicking on the black metal of the deck, which had been polished to a high sheen. She led him to the first tier of control stations. A young Nemoidian in an ensign's uniform sat at the console, and Cotra noticed his skin turn mottled pink.

"Ensign, call up chart three-three-delta," Lorda ordered.

The Nemoidian's long green hands danced over the console, and his screen shifted from a view of local Metastraten space to one Cotra recognised immediately.

"The Clawbeak Nebula, Captain?"

"Yes, sir," Lorda replied. The swirl of red and green spatial gases on the screen was unmistakable.

"That's barely six light years away from this system. Do you truly expect me to believe that pirates would be so brazen to be operating between two of our most heavily armed worlds?"

The Clawbeak Nebula was located directly between Metastrato Prime and Madooine, the location of the sector's largest shipyard, and centre of the Coalition's military manufacturing. A huge amount of traffic passed through the nebula on a daily basis, traversing the quickest route between the two worlds, though the nature of the nebula made policing it permanently difficult; the countless gaseous and spatial anomalies in the region played havoc with sensors.

"If you'll forgive me, sir," Lorda said, "the proximity to our fleets is precisely ___why _I think pirates would operate in that area. Ensign, overlay readouts thirty-seven twenty-nine beta and twelve twenty-two gamma."

The Nemoidian manipulated the controls, and two overlays appeared on the screen.

"As you can see, there's been a considerable amount of subspace chatter in this quadrant. My Intelligence Division has spent the last week trying to decrypt the transmissions, but the nebula has chewed them up."

"It doesn't correspond with any of the trade routes…" Cotra said, and chewed his bottom lip for a moment.

"No, Your Excellency, it doesn't."

"Any reports of lost shipping?"

"Yes, sir, there has been, but no discernible spike. When you're travelling through a nebula, it's to be expected that a few ships lose their way."

Cotra nodded. He was aware of one top-secret base in the nebula, but he knew the commander of that facility. He wouldn't dare be so idiotic as to leave detectable traces of subspace communications. Besides, that particular base was located in a completely different quadrant.

"You've done well, Captain Lorda. Transmit your findings to Central Intelligence. Your crew may see combat within the week."

The Nemoidian tried not to shiver, but Lorda simply saluted. "Understood, Your Excellency."

Cotra turned back to the main viewport. Metastrato Prime was growing closer, and the ships depicted in the central display were now visible in the glow of the sun on the planet's day side; tiny motes of light glinting bright against the atmosphere. The web of defense stations were visible now, too; and there, just along the curve of the planet's night side, he could see a fist-sized chunk of rock.

Shattermoon.

Though Metastrato Prime was the centre of the Coalition, Shattermoon was its capital. Metastrato's sole natural satellite, a full quarter of the moon had been pulverised and broken apart during a collision with a rogue comet two billion years before.

Shattermoon was now a citadel, home to almost a billion people living in pressurised cities that covered the entire surface, including the Baronial Palace and the Sector Parliament, embassies of a thousand worlds and the headquarters of the sector military. Protected by three overlapping defense shields and a series of battle stations that ringed the moon's equator, it was perhaps the safest place in the galaxy.

That was his home, and it was the jewel in his crown; just over a century ago, Shattermoon had been sparsely populated, essentially a mining colony of Metastrato Prime. Now, it administered an entire region of space, could withstand a century-long siege.

It was a bulwark of sanctuary, a symbol of the security that the Metastraten Sector now enjoyed, in no small part thanks to Regent Hiram Cotra.

The ___Regency_, ignoring the standard orbital protocols thanks to its dual status as both a diplomatic vessel and a warship, shot across Metastrato Prime, and Cotra reached his spot before the viewport just as it passed from the terminus separating day from night on the planet below, Captain Lorda trailing behind.

Shattermoon came into full view, and Cotra could make out two of___Regency_'s sister ships in orbit, along with at least three dozen more Metastraten warships.

"Captain Lorda, prepare my shuttle for departure," Cotra ordered.

"Right away, Your Excellency."

"Inform the palace of my immediate arrival."

As Lorda hurried to carry out his orders, Cotra looked at Shattermoon, at the ships in orbit, and at the stars beyond… all of them his. Again, that voice whispered: _almost_.

* * *

Valeria Lorda, captain of the _Regency_, watched Hiram Cotra depart the bridge with something like a smug grin threatening to turn up the corner of her lips. She fought to maintain her stony-faced visage, however: such displays of emotion had no place coming from a commanding officer on the bridge of her starship.

"Captain," came the soft voice of Junior Lieutenant Anda Korm. A broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted woman, Korm wore a uniform every bit as pressed and polished as Lorda's own, though with significantly fewer battle decorations. Korm was a recent graduate of the Metastraten Military Academy's Officer Graduate Program, a position she'd earned thanks to Lorda's sponsorship. Her loyalty was absolute, her position as Lorda's right hand unshakeable.

"Yes, lieutenant," Lorda replied, inclining her head slightly in the young officer's direction. Lorda had worked to make sure that her reliance upon Korm was a closely-guarded secret. "What is it?"

"There's a message from Connection," Korm said, her voice dropping to little more over the whisper. "He says he's located an appropriate approach vector."

Lorda couldn't help but smile at that. "Excellent. Tell him to proceed at his discretion."

"Will do, ma'am," Korm said, her voice returning to normal volume. She logged some data on the computer tablet she was carrying, as though she were simply marking down a captain's every day orders. Her voice dropped again. "How did the regent react to the information coming out of the Clawbeak Nebula?"

"He didn't," Lorda said, shaking her head a little. "Whatever's happening out there, he doesn't know about it."

The two women stood together for a moment. Lorda glanced out the transparisteel viewport, at Metastrato and Shattermoon and the faint outline of a red-yellow smear beyond. The Clawbeak Nebula.

A moment later, Lorda said crisply "Dismissed, lieutenant."

Korm snapped off a salute and went about her business.

* * *

Hiram Cotra's private shuttlecraft didn't have a name. He had never seen much cause to grant it one. It spent most of its time either in his personal hangar aboard the Regency, or in his private docking bay on Shattermoon.

A ___Theta_-class T-9 shuttle from Cygnus Spaceworks, the vessel was opulently furnished, protected by three quadlaser cannons and a powerful pair of shield generators. Cotra kept a small cabin and an office in the rear section, and so rarely saw his personal pilots and security staff that he liked to pretend they didn't exist.

From the viewing port in his cabin, he watched the shuttle disembark the ___Regency_, and saw the black, shining surface of the battlecruiser drop away from his as the shuttle burnt space towards Shattermoon. Metastrato Prime hung in the distance, and Cotra once again found himself counting the orbital defence platforms.

It took only a few minutes for the pilots to transmit their ID codes to Shattermoon's hypervigilant traffic controllers, and to guide the shuttle towards the Baronial Palace. From this viewport, Cotra knew he wouldn't be able to see the palace, but he didn't have to. For eight years, it had been his home; its stately spires of shimmering duranium, its lush palace gardens studded with bronzium statues, its endless galleries and libraries and dining halls and, of course, its vast array of hidden defences. No sign remained of the fires that had heralded his rise to power.

Cotra watched the pressurised cities of Shattermoon spread out on the bleak, cold grey surface before him, their alleys and avenues overflowing with life. The shuttle banked hard, and he had to balance himself against the g-forces. With a thud, he felt it pass through the shields that protected the palace precinct.

Within a few moments, the shuttle had come to rest in its usual place in the hangar. He headed for the exit ramp, which had already opened when he approached it. He could have called for an honour guard, had the palace guard standing at attention as he disembarked, but he'd decided against it. After all, there were no holocams here, no reporters.

He reached the decking of the hangar to find only one person waiting for him.

Garbed in a dark cloak that completely surrounded his tall, musclebound frame, Faran Kess' face was hidden beneath a low cowl. Over the years, Cotra had become inured to the man's slightly unnerving presence, but he still was never pleased to see the Dark Jedi waiting for him. It usually heralded bad news.

Kess bowed as Cotra approached.

"Mister Kess," Cotra greeted, keeping his tone light. "What brings you to Shattermoon?"

"I have news, My Lord Regent," Kess answered, his voice little more than light rasp.

"Oh?" Cotra asked, arching an eyebrow, and allowing a note of venom to creep into his voice. "And what news could you possibly have that would make you think that announcing it in this hangar, in full view of the shuttle crew, of the techs, could be a good idea?"

Kess didn't not seem perturbed by the rebuke. "I have located Nyanna, Regent."

Hiram Cotra's throat nearly closed over with the shock. For a long moment, the Regent just stared at the cloaked man, before finally coughing. "Excuse me, Kess?"

"I have located Nyanna," the dark Jedi repeated.

"Where?" Cotra hissed, unable to believe his ears. "How?"

"A planet near the Tion Cluster, Regent," Cotra said. "My sources are many and varied, but they all share one trait."

"And what is that?" Cotra asked, genuinely curious now.

He thought he saw Kess smile when he answered "They are all dead now, sir."

"Good work," Cotra said, nodding. The loss of life was regrettable, of course, but they were lives lost serving the greater good. The greater good, in this case, was the preservation of Hiram Cotra's power, and the regent was certain that no greater good existed. "You will want to pursue her, I imagine."

Kess nodded once.

"Come with me," Cotra said, and indicated that Kess should join him in leaving the hangar. For a long while the two did not speak, as Cotra led the way into the long viewing gallery that connected the hangar with the Regent's private officers. The gallery provided an astonishing view of the moon's surface, of the palace gardens and the city beyond.

Eight years ago, Cotra remembered those gardens burning in the rarefied atmosphere beneath the pressurised dome, swarming with angry, armed protestors and the black uniforms of Metastraten Navy marines and the palace guard.

"That you have located Nyanna is, of course, excellent news," Cotra said to Kess, about halfway down the length of the gallery. "But that's only half of the puzzle."

"Yes," Kess agreed, and paused. "I have had no luck locating the Sith, I am afraid."

Cotra sighed. "No. No, I didn't suppose you would have found her just yet. There are some leads I will have my agents chase up, but I still want you on the lead in that particular hunt. But first we must deal with Nyanna, Kess."

"I agree, Regent," the man said, nodding once. "With your permission, I will depart within the hour."

"The hour?" Cotra said, lifting his eyebrow. "So soon?"

"With every passing minute, Regent, someone may discover what has become of my sources," Kess explained. "Any trained intelligence operative would likely be able to piece it all together. If the Sith's agents reach Nyanna before we do, all will be lost."

Cotra nodded. They'd reached the end of the gallery, and he ushered Kess into his private chambers. He shooed away the servants that came to greet him, and led Kess through the opulently decorated receiving room towards his suite of offices.

Cotra's public office was enormous, more for show to the holocams and occasional reporters looking for an interview than for actual work. A short corridor led from this to his private office, which was much smaller and more Spartan, but a second corridor led from there to his personal library and, most importantly of all, a small room filled with holographic projectors.

It was to this room he took Kess. Activating the holoprojectors, he led Kess into a darkened room filled with dancing points of light; a living, three dimensional starchart.

"Show me where Nyanna is," he instructed the dark Jedi.

Consulting the small readout screen on the metallic cuff that decorated his right arm, Kess pointed to a somewhat dim, main sequence star. The sensor's installed in the rooms walls detected his movement, and that star rapidly grew, developing in a not-to-scale diagram of that star and its system of planets.

"The Tobali system," Cotra mused reading the information that played out beside the diagram. "Small, out of the way. Nothing of interest there at all."

"Three planets," Kess said, indicating the three lines that ringed the hologrammic star. "The outer two are gas giants. They, and their moons, are completely uninhabited."

"I've heard of the first planet," Cotra said, and tapped it. "Rhen Var."

The hologram shifted again, now displaying a view of the planet. The hovering, holographic world was about a metre in diameter. It was white and grey, shrouded in thick clouds.

"Terrestrial, but no moons," Cotra said. "Predominately covered in glacial ice. It's in the midst of a protracted ice age. Formerly the site of a Jedi base and an Imperial listening post, but there's been no inhabitants recorded in over a century. Are you sure they'd take Nyanna there?"

"Where better?" Kess asked. "The system is of no interest to anyone. Not the Alliance, not the Empire, certainly not the Tionese or the Hutts."

"But a forgotten ice ball on the Outer Rim? Even the Jedi would have had more respect for Nyanna than to dump her there," Cotra sniffed, unimpressed. He had his problems with Nyanna and her dynasty, but he couldn't imagine her tucked away in deep freeze.

"What greater respect could they afford than safety and privacy?" Kess said.

Cotra nodded. Rhen Var seemed a likely place for the Jedi to take Nyanna, as good a world as any to secrete a renegade noblewoman. "What do you know about her defences?"

Kess drew himself up at that. "The Jedi have been relying on stealth to keep Nyanna safe. I imagine that they have no one there capable of protecting her from me."

"What about Laahn Ka?" Cotra asked, and Kess came up short.

"Laahn Ka is not a threat," Kess responded, sounding almost defensive. It was the most emotion Cotra had ever heard from the man.

"Laahn Ka has been missing for eight years," Cotra reminded him. "She eluded our patrols and fled the sector. She's obviously talented. It's reasonable to assume that she would know where Nyanna is, and that she would have a role in her defence."

"It isn't," Kess argued. "Laahn Ka lost Nyanna eight years ago. Perhaps she's been able to find her but she's been on the run ever since, without resources or allies. Her Jedi allies have been annihilated, her face one of the most wanted in the galaxy. Besides, if I move quickly, I will have the element of surprise."

Cotra nodded. "Then you have my permission to leave as soon as possible. Find Nyanna Meheron, Kess, and kill her." As Kess hurried from his presence, Cotra allowed himself a small sign. First the Ampiri pirates, now Nyanna Meheron. The list of potential threats to his regime was begin to shrink. Absolute power was within his grasp.


	9. Act I, scene vi - Mustafar

**MUSTAFAR**

* * *

Mustafar was a strange world. The sole inhabited planet in the system named for it, it shared an orbit with the enormous gas giant Jestefed. A young, extraordinarily volatile world, it was constantly being torn apart by the gravitic tug-of-war being waged between Jestefed and its planetary neighbour, the distant but incredibly dense Lefrani. Swathed in thick clouds of volcanic ash, its rocky, rugged surface in a state of permanent twilight and scoured continuously by rivers of molten lava, it was a miracle that anyone could survive there for long, let alone build a life and even thrive.

And yet, live there people did. Small settlements dotted the surface. The native Mustafarian species, the tall, gaunt northerners and the far stockier, hardier southerners, had carved out an industry of harvesting the lava and extracting precious metals and minerals from it. They made enough credits to survive, to trade for food and the amenities their angry, begotten world refused to provide.

Mustafar, however, was right on the ragged edge of the Outer Rim, much too far from the Galactic Core and too dangerous for a permanent mining operation. It was, mostly, a forgotten world.

The secrecy this afforded was the planet's true value.

The Nubian J-type star skiff that reverted to realspace at the very edges of Mustafar's gravity well was built for stealth and operated in secrecy. The ship had no name, no designation, no Identify Friend/Foe transponder, no serial number, no registration on any world anywhere in the galaxy. Its flying-wing shape was a matte black, the exotic metal coating its hull designed to reflect scanners and most forms of cosmic radiation, including starlight. The ship's modified Sossen-7 sublight engines used an isotope of fuel that left a dark efflux trail. The vessel was unarmed, most of its interior packed with extraordinarily illegal communications equipment and scanner countermeasures as well as a state-of-the-art, blindingly fast hyperdrive.

A powerful computer watched the galactic HoloNet and most of communications frequencies, commonly used and not so commonly. A small team of slicer droids constantly worked on decryption methods that would have been the envy of every intelligence outfit in the universe. A sophisticated, heuristic algorithm determined what the ship's sole pilot might want to hear in a galaxy filled with people who never stopped talking to each other.

It was a mobile covert listening post, meant to stay hidden and keep an ear to the wind. In that purpose, it functioned extraordinarily well.

The ship, unnoticed by any scanners on the planet's surface, was the only vessel flying in the skies above Mustafar. It was, in fact as well as in intention, a shadow. Dropping into Mustafar's turbulent upper atmosphere, it cut through the thick, roiling clouds of ash like a knife and finally descended towards the planet's tortured surface, on a course for the northern hemisphere.

The pilot paid little heed to the brilliant rivers of lava cascading across black outcroppings of stone. Instead, she focused on her destination: a tall, mushroom-shaped metal tower built into the side of a mountain. As she neared, she input and transmitted an authorisation code and the tower's automatic defensive weaponry disengaged, not that the relatively rudimentary scanners that found the guns' targets would have even registered her approach.

That same authorisation code opened a wide hatch on the upper side of the tower. A narrow landing platform slowly extended, just large enough for a ship the size of the skiff. The black-hulled ship settled gently to a landing on its thin landing struts.

The pilot stood from her chair and headed aft, wrapping a thick, dark cloak around her as she reached the landing ramp. It was already lowering, exposing her to the searing heat and ash-choked atmosphere of Mustafar.

Already, the person she'd come to meet was scurrying out onto the deck. Tall and skeletally thin, the Mustafarian wore several layers of protective garments, his Kubaz-like nasal trunk twitching as he lifted a spindly, three-fingered hand in a salute of greeting.

The pilot nodded her head in response. He stepped aside to allow her ingress into his tower.

"Welcome back to Mustafar," he said as he shut the outer hatch behind them, shaking the ash off of his person. His guest had removed her cloak and was folding it, placing it on a small shelf beside the inner door. He added her title when she turned back to him without a smile. "Master Jedi."

Laahn Ka, her elegantly curved montrals free from the dark material of the cloak, said simply "We have business to attend to, Glikos."

"You're right, of course," Glikos said, ushering the Togruta Jedi deeper into his tower. It was dark and oppressively hot inside, as befitted the Mustafarian's ancestral habitat. His species had evolved from the extremophile arthropods that had lived in Mustafar's deep mountain caverns, which were protected from the constant lava flows that blighted the surface and as a result were slightly cooler.

What would have been incapacitating for a human, however, was merely uncomfortable for a Togruta. Laahn Ka's species had evolved in the densely packed tunnels beneath the surface of the planet Shili and, as a result, had become a highly organised, social species. Laahn Ka hadn't been sociable for a long time.

Finally, they reached the centre of the tower. Glikos input a code on a small access panel. A recessed door slid open, revealing an airy, brightly lit circular chamber, packed with machinery both antiquated and lovingly maintained. Laahn Ka followed him inside. Glikos didn't live in this tower. No one did. He was simply its caretaker, maintaining the tower and the precious equipment within. The droids that monitored the countless screens didn't even look up from their work as the two interlopers entered into their sanctum.

The air in here was positively icy, kept at a constant temperature just above five degrees in order to allow the old computer banks to function without interruption. A long time ago, Mustafar had been the last redoubt of the embattled rulers of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. They had been discovered, exterminated and their equipment left to the unrelenting fury of the volcanic world. This chamber was one such example: a listening post.

Years before, when she was scouring the galaxy for such hidden centres of information in order to set up a galaxy-spanning network of contacts and spies, she'd found the records of this site in the personal files of a long-dead Nemoidian. Glikos and his family had been operating it for generations, selling information to whomever could afford it.

Laahn Ka could certainly afford it.

"What's so important that you called me halfway across the galaxy, Glikos?" Laahn Ka asked, looking around the room.

"Over here," he said, beckoning her towards a station unmanned by any of the droids. He punched in a code and called up an image. It was an overview of the galaxy, a simplified representation of the spiral formation. A few red spots glowed faintly. "One of the faces you told me to watch out for has shown up a couple of times in the last few weeks. I was going to log it all and shoot it to you in a packet at the end of the month, like normal, only the last place this guy showed up squared with one of your hot zones."

Laahn Ka's heart leapt into her throat. "Who was it?"

"This guy," Glikos answered, summoning an image of an olive-skinned man with a classically constructed face. His throat was covered, hiding the scar she'd left there upon their first meeting eight years before. Laahn Ka looked upon the face of Faran Kess and fought the hate that erupted in her heart. If Glikos noticed her inner struggle, he didn't show it. "He's shown up on a few planets in the Inner Rim and the Core. It was only when he got to the Empress Teta system that I thought I should call you."

Laahn Ka swallowed, tamping down her rage. "You did the right thing, Glikos. Thank you."

"No problem," he said. "Just make sure you add a couple of credits to the monthly bill, yeah?"

"Of course," she answered, remaining as matter-of-fact as she could. That Kess had been in Empress Teta was a concern, though it may have been a coincidence. The system, located in the Deep Core, was a commercial and cultural centre and had been for millennia. "Where else has he been located?"

"Let me check," he said, calling up some more information. "Champala, Corulag, Duros, Manaan, Obroa-skai..."

With each planet the Mustafarian named, Laahn Ka's blood grew colder. "How did you find him?" she demanded, cutting Glikos off in mid-sentence.

Somewhat unnerved by the always-cool Jedi's sudden outburst, Glikos hesitated before saying "He showed up on public security cams in a few places, got his picture snapped at the spaceport on Corulag. He showed up in the background of some Aleena family's holosnaps on Manaan. You know if it gets uploaded onto the HoloNet, my droids will find it."

"Yes," Laahn Ka said with a curt nod, embarrassed that she'd allowed her fury with Kess to get the better of her. She had more pressing concerns than propriety, however. "Run a cross-check with local police records. I assume you have access to them?"

"Sure," Glikos said, nodding. "For most of these planets, anyway. Ah, here we go."

His trunk slumped as he read. Laahn Ka looked over his hunched shoulder. Sometime after every sighting of Kess, on each of these worlds, local authorities had found a body or two in the vicinity of his presence. Oftentimes, the victims had been tortured. In the cases where the bodies had been identified, Laahn Ka recognised their names immediately. Each and every single one of them had, at one time or another, served as contacts or informants for her.

Faran Kess had found her network. Worse, the man killed on Empress Teta had helped Laahn Ka transport some cold weather living equipment to a planet in the Outer Rim, not far from the Tion Cluster. Rhen Var. She shivered, realising that Kess had the dark side at his power. Even though the man's loyalty had been beyond question, Kess would have extracted the information from him. Would have seen through his eyes, even.

Would have glimpsed Nyanna Meheron.

Laahn Ka suddenly became edgy. She needed to get off Mustafar, needed to contact Rhen Var. Needed to get Nyanna to safety. Eight years ago, Kess had killed the rest of the Meheron family. He was now close to finding the last of their number.

She focused, centring herself and ridding herself of unwanted thoughts. She had to focus on the here and now, remain mindful of the living Force.

"You've been a great help to me, Glikos," Laahn Ka said with a friendly smile. "I'll triple the fee for this month. Unfortunately, that will have to serve as severance."

The Mustafarian turned, drawing himself up to his full height. "But why? I thought the information was good!"

"It's for your own safety, my friend," she said, her expression turning solemn. "As is this."

She drew her lightsabre from her belt. The blue blade erupted into humming life with a familiar _snap-hiss_. Glikos' eyes widened in shock as she plunged the weapon into the listening station's console. It sparked and flashed as circuits were annihilated and its systems overloaded.

"What are you doing?" he cried in shock.

The Jedi pivoted, decapitating one of the slicer droids and then hacking it to pieces with a series of elegant, almost gentle strokes of her blade. Its fellows worked on, unabated.

"What I must do," Laahn Ka said, almost sadly. Glikos felt a sudden pressure behind his knees and he fell to them. Laahn Ka deactivated her weapon, clipped it back on her belt and stepped over to him. Putting her hands either side of his face, she reached out with the Force. He felt her presence on the edge of his consciousness, probing, seeking a way past whatever mental defences he may have built up over the years.

"Stop," he said, quietly.

"I can't," she replied. Her tone was apologetic, her sadness sincere. She sought out every trace of her in his memory, obliterating them to the last. When she was done, he had no memory of ever having met her. Shivering after the ruthless, relentless invasion of his mind, the Mustafarian looked up at her with something akin to fear. She sent one last wave of Force energy through his mind, knocking him unconscious. "I'm so, so sorry."

Such Force techniques were dangerous, often tools of the dark side. Laahn Ka was desperate, however, and desperate times called for desperate measures.

She dragged Glikos' prone form from the room and then reactivated her lightsabre. Slowly, methodically, she reduced every console, every piece of machinery, every droid, to so much wreckage. She paid special attention to the mainframes that houses the systems' enormous memory. At length, only the master systems console remained. The room was full of the stench of ozone and smoke rose from the rubble of her grim work.

Attending to the final console, she sent a power overload to the rest of the systems that constituted the core of the tower. Its heavy metal frame, designed to withstand the tectonic and geological horrors Mustafar could throw at it, could easily handle the explosions she heard echoing through it.

Finally, the echoes fell silent. Laahn Ka hefted her lightsabre and plunged it into the heart of the console. It went dark with a sickening pop. Deactivating the blade, she tucked it into her belt and returned to Glikos. He was sleeping peacefully. She felt sorrow for what she'd done to him, but her concerns for Nyanna's safety were overriding that.

Laahn Ka had failed the Meherons so spectacularly, losing Nyanna to kidnappers and failing to prevent Kess from assassinating the rest of the family on one night. Worse, she'd been unable to reach the Jedi Temple on Samea in time to prevent the slaughter that wiped the Samean Chapter of the Jedi Order from the face of the galaxy. She'd stolen a ship and fled the Metastraten sector, combing the galaxy looking for Nyanna, That Erik Meheron was evidently alive and that his image and words were occasionally broadcast throughout the Metastraten Sector did little to assuage her guilt: he was still under Hiram Cotra's control and would undoubtably come to be that worm's puppet. She'd spent so long searching that the message she'd been handed by a courier on the planet Bimmisaari had been anticlimactic.

A handwritten note, inside a message tube that could only be opened by Laahn Ka's thumbprint. She'd recognised that painfully neat script immediately as belonging to Nyanna Meheron, at that time still in hiding on an unknown world far beyond the known reaches of the Outer Rim. That message had put Laahn Ka on this course, had turned the once gregarious, sociable Togruta Jedi into the secretive spymaster she now was.

Or, at least, had been.

If Faran Kess had compromised her network, she needed to shut it down. Not for her safety but for the safety of her contacts and, most crucially, the safety of Nyanna, ensconced in hiding on the frozen world Rhen Var.

Laahn Ka reached the exit, opening the inner hatch and retrieving her cloak. Wrapping herself in it, she stepped out into the benighted Mustafar day. The thick ash clouds had broken, ever so slightly, allowing a glimpse of the planet's pale sun. Cast in black against the bright disc was distant Lefrani.

Laahn Ka realised that she could empathise with Mustafar's predicament. She was a Jedi, torn between the oaths she had taken as a member of that sacred and ancient order and the measures she needed to take in order to protect Nyanna. She, too, was torn between two great forces. Her honour and the necessities of the day. Sighing, she wasted no more time in the scorching atmosphere of the planet.

She boarded her skiff and lifted off immediately. Pointing the craft's broad but elegant nose towards the sky, she gunned her engines and was pressed back into the pilot's chair. As soon as she was out of the planet's atmosphere, she set course for the edge of the gravity well and activated the ship's HoloNet transceiver.

The first thing she did was wire three hundred thousand credits to Glikos' account from her bank on Muunilinst. It wouldn't make up for the loss of the listening post but it would make things easier for the Mustafarian's family. The next thing she did was send out pings to many of her agents across the galaxy. She needed to know who was alive and who'd been compromised. If someone detected her access, they'd trace them back to Mustafar but she'd already be long gone.

Waiting a few minutes for the computers to find an appropriate signal to piggyback off of, she keyed an introductory pulse and waited. A few moments later came a reply signal. The hologram project plate on the pilot's console came to life, revealing a bluescanned image of a hunched figure wearing a cloak not unlike Laahn Ka's own. It kept her face hidden and her voice was masked by an encryption program.

"Silence calling Deepfreeze," Laahn Ka said.

"_Deepfreeze returning your call, Silence,_" the figure replied. "_What's your status?_"

"Whisper has been compromised," the Togruta said, getting straight to the point. "He's found my agents. I don't know how many have been killed, but we have to operate under the assumption that he's blown the network wide open."

Deepfreeze was silent for a time. At long last, she said "_I understand. Do you think he knows our location?_"

Laahn Ka shivered. "I have reason to believe that he does."

"_We must leave immediately,_" Deepfreeze said and shook her cowled head. "_We always knew it was only a matter of time..._"

"I'll set course for you at once," Laahn Ka assured her.

"No," Deepfreeze answered emphatically.

"Master," Laahn Ka said, dropping the codenames for a moment. "You don't have a ship. How do you propose to get offworld?

"_I'll contact Treetops,_" Deepfreeze answered. Laahn Ka was uneasy at that proposal, but didn't argue. Deepfreeze had known Treetops for a very, very, very long time. They trusted one another implicitly. "_She'll send someone to extract us._"

"They might not reach you in time," Laahn Ka insisted.

Deepfreeze shook her head. "Faran Kess is still in the pocket of Hiram Cotra. He'll need to return to his master before he makes any move against us. We're at least three days away from Metastrato Prime."

"And if your faith in Treetops is misplaced?" she pressed.

"_Then we're all doomed,_" Deepfreeze answered honestly. "_Such are the vicissitudes of fate. The will of the Force._"

Laahn Ka bit back an argument. "I could be there tomorrow."

"_You have more pressing concerns, Shadow,_" Deepfreeze answered, her tone brooking no room for argument. "_You know that. If your agents have been compromised, you may have a leak. Worse, their lives and the lives of their families are in danger. It is your duty to see to them._"

"It's my duty to protect Principle," Laahn Ka answered, referring to their codename for Nyanna.

"_Your duty is to the Force,_" Deepfreeze reminded her sharply. "_The Force will protect Principle, as it always has._"

Again, Laahn Ka had to bite her tongue to keep from rebuking Deepfreeze. "I understand. I've sent pings to my agents. I'll make sure they're safe."

Deepfreeze nodded. "_Good. After you have ascertained their safety, begin to dismantle Whisper._"

Laahn Ka arched a hairless brow. "Say again, Deepfreeze."

"_Your network has served its purpose, Shadow. It kept us safe her for five years. Our time of sanctuary has ended. Destiny is calling and I intend to answer it._" Deepfreeze answered with a matter-of-fact tone. "_Treetops will host us when we meet again in two standard weeks. Understood?_"

"I understand, Deepfreeze. May the Force be with you." Laahn Ka nodded, though she wasn't happy about any of it.

"_And with you, my young friend._" At that, the pojector grille went dark.

A soft beep from the ship's console told Laahn Ka that she'd reached the edge of Mustafar's gravity well. She input coordinates to the navicomputer and sent the skiff into hyperspace, committed to following her new master's orders.

As the unnatural swirl of hyperspace extended before her, she closed her eyes and reached out with the Force, looking to clear her mind and seek answers in meditation. A faint darkness hovered at the edge of her perception, however, and it troubled her greatly.


	10. Act I, scene vii - StarHawk

_**STARHAWK**_

* * *

The galaxy was home to millions of inhabited systems and hundreds of thousands of sentient species. Untold numbers of starships plied the galactic spacelanes every hour of every day. In all that hustle and bustle, all the chaos of a functioning universe, it was sometimes easy to forget that space was big. Very, very big and, for the most part, completely empty.

Deep in the trackless wastes between star systems, where there was nothing but vacuum, stray particles of space dust, background radiation and starlight, the injured _StarHawk_ hung motionless, licking her wounds. The damaged _Delaya_-class courier's blind hyperspace jump had last a few seconds and had miraculously avoided plunging them into Nal Hutta or the Y'Toub system's solar primary. Those few seconds had been enough to exhaust the ship's already strained power systems, however, and had overloaded the hyperdrive motivator.

The sleek, exotic-looking vessel was mostly powered down now, its systems all offline except for those that her crew of four needed to stay alive. And one that Lilithan'cara needed to keep her from wanting to kill herself.

She was as rough-and-tumble as anyone she'd ever met. A smuggler, a scoundrel and a former slave, she'd lived an exciting, often hard life. Sleeping rough, staying one step ahead of customs ships or rival scum, all of that was part of the job. She didn't mind that. Point of fact, she loved that. But crawling through a Hutt's sewers was too much, even for her.

As soon as _StarHawk_ had made hyperspace and she'd powered down her quadlaser, she'd stripped off her soiled jumpsuit and thrown it into the trash incinerator in the rear of the craft. Then, all but naked, she run immediately to the refresher and commenced a long, scorching hot shower that she was sure would use up the rest of the craft's water reserves. So what if they went thirsty for a while? She needed to not _smell_ like this anymore.

The adrenalin of the battle had kept her from noticing. Once it was over, however, she'd been driven near insane.

She felt the sheets of scalding hot water cascade over her lilac skin and smiled with the satisfaction. Even if she hadn't had to crawl through Ajuura's waste, she'd have felt slimy having been that Hutt's palace anyway. The indentured servants, the imprisoned aliens on the detention level, the slavish devotion of his retainers. It was enough to make her sick.

Closing her eyes as the water continued its relentless drumbeat against her epidermis, she heard the door to the shower slide open. She smiled as Rann looped his rough hands around her neck and pulled her to his naked body.

He smelled just as bad as she had before the shower but she didn't mind at all. Turning, she cupped his chin with one hand and kissed him, savouring the taste of his lips.

"Nice flying," she said once the kiss had ended.

"Good shooting," he replied. "I think you might have put the Karpasian brothers out of action once and for all."

Lilith grinned at the thought. "All in a day's work, huh? But what are we going to do about Ajuura's bounty? It's not like that _sleemo_'s just going to forget about it."

Rann shrugged his broad shoulders. "Once we talk to the Guild, they'll take the bounty down. Ajuura backed out of a deal and blamed us for not responding well to it. Even if he does tell a few of the local agents, so what? We'll just stay out of Hutt Space for a while."

"And lose most of our business," she said with a scowl.

Rann laughed at that. "It's a big galaxy, Lilith. Maybe we can do some easy cargo runs again. Nothing too complicated. Take some time off."

Her lips quirked upwards. "A blue milk run, huh?"

"Exactly," Rann said, nodding.

She rolled her eyes. "Like this was meant to be a blue milk run? Like lifting the gems was meant to be a blue milk run? Like the Paradise job was meant to be a blue milk run?"

"Hey," Rann said, interjecting into her sarcastic tirade. "The Paradise job _was_ a blue milk run. That job went off without a hitch. Except for the..."

"Droids?" Lilith finished for him.

He fixed her with a scowl. That same scowl had sent a few petty criminals running for cover but Rann was naked and sopping wet, which took away from the effect somewhat. Lilith leaned forward and kissed him. "Let's just shower, all right?"

He smiled, one hand tracing the delicate curve of her body, the other gently stroking one of her lekku. The motion sent shivers down her spine. "Sounds good to me."

Kissing her again, Rann stopped speaking. The two embraced and stayed that way, wrapped up in each other, for a long time, until the hot water went cold and then stopped running altogether.

* * *

The _StarHawk_ had been rebuilt many times over the course of its long career. It was ancient ship, but nothing left aboard her actually qualified as ancient. The interior lay-out had frequently been changed over the decades that she'd served Rann's family but it had remained unchanged since he'd inherited the ship from his mother.

The forward-most inhabitable section was the cockpit, which was connected by a short corridor to the lounge. Off to one side of this corridor was the access hatch to the escape pod, while a tiny communications suite faced it on the other side. The lounge was fairly large and airy, positioned roughly where the two forward manoeuvring vanes were located on the exterior hull. It was here that the main boarding ramp, located in the forward, starboard section of the lounge, was located.

The floor was an alternating patchwork of solid deck plating and grill hatches leading to important machinery and circuits. A few monitors and consoles lined the walls of the lounge, though only one, the master systems display, had dedicated chairs in front of it. There was a dejarik gaming table in one corner, surrounded by four comfortable chairs. A couch ran along the portside wall and a scuffed wooden dining table was located near the small kitchenette, which had a view on the rest of the lounge. None of the chairs at the table matched any of the others and magnetic seals on the bottom of their legs kept them upright and in place.

Directly behind the kitchenette was the small medbay. Everything in that chamber was a sterile white, as opposed to the soft greys that predominated the rest of the ship's interior, except for the black of the cockpit. There was a single reclined cot in the middle of that room, a medical scaner overhead and a number of drawers and cabinets lining the walls. Beneath the cot was a medical stasis chamber, designed to preserve biological specimens.

The lounge ended in a corridor that ran the length of the habitable area of the ship. Six hatches inset in the grey bulkheads led to the crew cabins. Five were roughly identical, with a bunk in each, a desk, a computer terminal and a storage bin for personal effects, plus a small cubicle refresher station.

The sixth, located across from the medbay, was half again as large. This was the cabin Rann and Lilith shared. It featured a comfortable double-sized cot, a free-stranding wardrobe of Twi'lek design that had been bolted to the bulkhead, a footlocker and a hologram that was projected onto the bulkhead above the narrow computer terminal desk. It cycled through several different images of beauty, but all of them featured the forests of the planet Kashyyyk. Unlike the cubicle-sized refresher units of the other cabin, this master cabin featured a full-sized en suite.

Deeper into the ship was the ladder leading to the gun turrets, as well as the passage leading to the airlock, where Rann, Gila and Lilith had come aboard during the escape from Ajuura's palace. Beyond that, there were the two large cargo bays. These were utterly lacking in any of the creature comforts of the forward part of the _StarHawk_, all cold metal bulkheads and deckplates. All the Each had once featured a loading ramp that extended from the belly of the ship, but only one of those remained. The starboard cargo bay was just that, a cargo bay, usually piled high with supplies. The port bay, however, had been converted into a miniature hangar.

The loading ramp had been replaced by hatch that fell open. A small fuel tank and fuelling equipment dominated the aft end of the bay. The rest of it was filled with a small sublight starfighter, a Subpro Airframe-99 short-range scout. This ship, highly manoeuvrable and blindingly fast, lacked a hyperdrive and shield generators but featured a pair of fire-linked laser cannons and limited cargo space. It wasn't flown often but it was

Past that was the engine room, which was connected to the three enormous banks of ion engines that powered the ship at sublight speeds by a series of crawl spaces. The hyperdrive core sat in the centre of the room, the radioactive elements at its heart protected behind thick metal plates. This was Sheen Him's sanctum sanctorum. He even slept here, eschewing the cabins for a hammock slung over the hyperdrive core.

The _StarHawk_'s systems were a patchwork, often jury-rigged and squeezed into a ship they hadn't been designed for. Even Rann Tye didn't know all of the ship's secrets.

* * *

For the first time in a long time, all four of the seats around the dejarik board were filled. Rann and Lilith looked across at Sheen Him and the small, red-skinned Twi'lek girl they'd liberated from Ajuura's servitude. Gila looked around at the_ StarHawk_'s interior in wonder, even though the lounge was relatively mundane. Lilith and Rann were both scrubbed clean and wearing new clothes, their soiled garments incinerated. Still, faint traces of the sewer smell hung in the air.

"I'll never get rid of that smell," Sheen Him said, shaking his elongated head. Though Aleena resembled rats or other small rodents to some extent, his species were often fastidiously clean, a trait helped along by their extraordinary olfactory sense. "I used half the cleaning chemicals on the ship to get the pilot's seat clean and I still couldn't get the stink out of it."

"How did you go on the gun turret?" Rann asked.

The Aleena shrugged. "I didn't even try."

Lilith couldn't help but laugh. Even Gila, who had been through some horrible traumas in the last few hours, offered a grin at that. "Sorry, boys," she said, shrugging her slender shoulders.

"I'm more annoyed about losing that jacket," Rann said. The red, lubricant and grease-stained jacket had been a fixture of his wardrobe for years. "That was a great jacket."

"You lost your jacket," Lilith shot back, "I lost my blaster! I loved that blaster."

Sheen Him huffed. "You pissed off a Hutt, we've got bounty hunters coming after us, the ship's falling apart and the two of you complain about a blaster and a jacket?"

Rann's smile went a bit brittle. "Yeah. I know. Sorry about that, Sheen Him. What's the damage?"

The Aleena let out a long, low whistle, leaning back in his chair. "It's bad. While you two were showering, I got the functioning droid brains trying to sort out the extent of the damage and how best to fix it."

"What about the third droid brain?" Lilith asked.

"I've got the other two talking to it, trying to bring it back online," Sheen Him said, "but I think it's going to need a full service. It'd be a lot easier if you let me have an astromech."

Rann met the Aleena's pointed gaze with a scowl. That was a pretty common refrain from the _StarHawk_'s tech when one of the ship's many temperamental systems went down. "No droids, Sheen Him. Not on my ship."

Gila frowned at that, speaking for the first time. "What's wrong with droids?"

"I _hate_ droids," Rann growled at the same time Lilith answered with an exasperated "It's a long story, Gila."

"Whatever, whatever," Sheen Him said, putting up his small hands in a gesture of surrender. "The point is that I think the third brain is going to need a full service next time we get anywhere near a droid tech. I can get it back to partial operation, maybe, but it won't work right until we do that."

Rann nodded. "Fine. What next?"

Sheen Him leant forward, manipulating the controls on the dejarik board. A three dimensional hologrammic representation of the _StarHawk_ shimmered into existence above the black-and-white checkered surface of the table. A section of the ship towards the aft was illuminated in red.

"The hyperdrive core overloaded during the blind jump," Sheen Him said, nodding at the red section. "I've got it cooling down now."

"I want you to make that your top priority," Rann said.

Sheen Him regarded him with a significant look through the semi-transparent hologram of the ship. "Wait until you hear the rest of the list before you start assigning priorities, Rann. I'm not saying that to be difficult, I'm saying that because a lot of stuff got shot up pretty bad."

Rann nodded. "Fair point. Go on."

As Sheen Him listed each damaged system, the section of the ship that corresponded to that system lit up in crimson on the hologram. "Only fourteen of the ion drives are operation. The main power conduit back there was cut off, so the starboard bank is offline. It's not difficult to replace, just tricky without a drydock. The ventral power conduit was cut, too, and I won't be able to repair that until we land in a good facility. So the ventral quadlaser and shields are off-line until we do that. The long-range communications systems are fried and we overloaded most of the sensor rectennae. The ones we didn't are fried. Until we can reconnect the systems or get a workaround functioning, which is harder to do if we're down a droid brain, we're flying blind. We're out of concussion missiles, the quadlaser barrels are all warped from overheating and the forward tibanna gas cannisters need replacing."

Rann listened to the list with mounting dread. "That's a good two weeks of shore time."

"If you want it all fixed properly, yeah," Sheen Him nodded. "There's no problem with the atmosphere recyclers or the life support systems, though. So we'll have air to breathe. Even if we won't have anything to drink."

At this last, Rann and Lilith shared an embarrassed glance.

"I still want you to make the hyperdrive your priority," Rann told the little alien. "Lilith and I can focus on the communications array and the sensors."

"Right," Sheen Him agreed, noting something on a datapad he was carrying and shutting down the dejarik board. As he slipped off the seat, he turned back. "By the way, I thought you'd like to know that the proton torpedo that the Surronian ship fired at us..."

Rann's heart beat a little fast as Sheen Him trailed off. "Yeah?"

"It hit us. Square in the aft," the Aleena said, noting the expressions of shock on the others' faces. "It's a dud, though. The warhead is dark."

"God, were we lucky," Lilith said as Sheen Him waddled aft.

Rann let loose a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. The idea that that proton torpedo had indeed hit them was terrifying. The paladium core that leant proton torpedos their extraordinary destructive power was noted for reliability. Less than one in ten thousand failed to detonate.

"What about me?" Gila said from across the dark table.

Rann turned. "We'll find you somewhere safe, Gila."

The Twi'lek girl blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Not every planet is like Nar Shaddaa," Rann assured her. "There's plenty of places you can start a good life."

"You want me to leave?" Gila asked and Rann was surprised by her horrified expression.

"Rann," Lilith whispered, a frown crinkling her hairless brow, "what are you doing?"

Rann turned to his partner, quirking an eyebrow. "Huh?"

Lilith jumped nimbly to her feet, locked Rann's elbow and pulled him from his chair and away from the dejarik board, saying to Gila over her shoulder, all smiles and sweet tones, "Please give us a second, Gila."

She pulled Rann over to the entrace to their cabin, out of the little Twi'lek girl's line of sight and suddenly her mood darkened and she pushed Rann against the bulkhead, her face twisted into a veritable snarl. "What did I do?" he exclaimed.

"Be quiet," she growled. "And listen to me. It's our responsibility to take care of her and we can't palm her off on someone else. We dragged that girl out of Ajuura's palace—"

"_You_ dragged her!" Rann corrected. "It wasn't my idea to run across the Hutt's throne room and shoot her chain and bring her along with us and..."

He trailed off when he saw Lilith's face. "She was a slave, Rann."

Nodding, he swallowed. "I know. You did the right thing getting her out of there, Lilith, you did. But we can't keep her on board _StarHawk_. We nearly got blasted trying to get off Nar Shaddaa. It's a dangerous galaxy and I don't want to put her in unnecessary danger."

"She was a slave," Lilith repeated, speaking slowly as though to a recalcitrant child. "She _knows_ that it's a dangerous galaxy."

Rann looked away, thinking of alternatives. "What if we took her back to Ryloth?"

Lilith almost laughed. "Don't be ridiculous! She was probably sold off by a clan leader on Ryloth as a baby to begin with. Look at her, Rann, look at the colour of her skin. She's a Lethan. They're _rare_. Incredibly rare. And that makes them valuable to slavers."

"Yeah," he said, his throat getting tight. Through the Force, his limited perceptions could detect Lilith's heartbreak. For most of her life, she'd been a slave in a Whiphid crime lord's household, a dancer chained to a wall much the way Gila had been in Ajuura's palace. He drew her into a hug, holding her close against him. "I know, Lilith."

Lilith returned his hug and he stepped back a second later. "So what do we do?"

"She's never had a proper home," Lilith said with a shrug of her delicate shoulders. "Let's give her one."

Nodding in agreement, Rann led them back to the dejarik table, where young Gila was looking off to the bulkhead, chewing her bottom lip. Rann and Lilith sat across from her, trading a significant look. Rann cleared his throat. "So, uh, Gila... well, the _StarHawk_'s not exactly the safest place in the galaxy but Lilith pointed out that you're used to danger. Besides, you handled yourself incredibly well in Ajuura's palace. You saved our lives."

Gila looked back at her rescuers, at the people she'd rescued in turn, and a smile began to turn up the corner of her lips. "I can stay?"

"You can stay," Rann nodded, smiling in return.

"But you'll have to pull your weight," Lilith interjected. Rann looked at her curiously, but she went on. "The StarHawk can be your home, the same way that it's ours, but part of your commitment to that is helping out."

Gila nodded bravely. "Okay."

"How about you head after and see if Sheen Him needs any help?" Lilith suggested with a gentle smile. "I'm sure he'll need someone to pass him his tools, at least."

"Especially since you don't have a droid," she said pointedly and Lilith snorted a laugh. The Lethan girl ran aft, leaving a visibly disconcerted Rann in her wake.

"Thanks for that," Lilith said, kissing him on the cheek. "She'll appreciate it more than you know."

Rann nodded. "Yeah. Come on, let's get working on communications."

* * *

It took a few hours of being elbow deep in circuitry, dismantling burnt out systems, replacing damaged components and jury-rigging bypasses, before Rann and Lilith managed to rebuild and reactivate the damaged communications console in the cockpit. The connections with the transponder array were fine, though the array itself had suffered some damage. Rann sent Lilith aft to the array itself while he began a series of test signals.

As he waited for Lilith to get to the array, buried as it was beneath the deck plates in the lounge, he sat back in the pilot's chair, looking out at the velvet blue-black of interplanetary space. The ship was oriented facing towards the galactic core, so a band of stars that resembled a milky-white ribbon was visible. He'd spent relatively little time Coreward, mostly operating from the Expansion Region to the Outer Rim. A long time ago, his family had actually come from the Core, or near to there at any rate. His mother's mother's mother's parents had been exiles from Metastrato Prime, political refugees of some persuasion or another.

Heaving a sigh through his nose, he finally heard a chirp over the ship's intercom. "I'm hear, Rann," Lilith's voice echoed through the cockpit speaker. "It's a bit of a mess but it looks like the antenna's salvageable."

Rann was relieved. The antenna consisted of kilometres of cable wrapped around the transceiver machinery itself. If that was damaged or otherwise disable, they'd have no way of repairing the communications systems.

"Hang on," Lilith said, a moment later. "One of the power cables has come loose."

Rann rolled his eyes. The _StarHawk_'s mixed and matched systems meant that cables built by one manufacturer were often fitted to plugs never meant to hold them. In a dire situation, with a lot of manoeuvring and high speeds, it was unsurprising that a few of them should come loose, especially considering what he'd put the communications system through.

A second later, a rising tone sounded from the communications console. Rann stood and went to investigate. He grinned as he saw that the communications system was back online, even if the computer was still a bit scrambled from the Karpasians' ion blasts. He took the system offline temporarily, defragmenting the computer drives and deleting any corrupted data he found in the directory. Lilith rejoined him, leaning over his shoulder. He smiled as he felt one of her lekku brush against him.

"How's it going?" she asked, examining his screen.

"I just need to reboot the system, copying the files from the back ups," Rann said. "Take a look at the navicomputer. It might have suffered some of the same data corruption."

"Right," Lilith nodded, slipping into the co-pilots chair. She brought up the navicomputer's drive directory and began to go through it. The StarHawk's navicomputer was an impressive device, even if it had failed to operate properly during the escape from Nar Shaddaa. A custom built component installed decades before, it contained countless hyperspace routes in its memory banks. Noticing something unusual, she frowned. "What's this?"

"What's what?" Rann asked, turning away from the comm console.

"One of the sealed memory sections," Lilith said, tapping away at the console. "I can access it now."

He frowned, joining her. A lot of the _StarHawk_'s computer system included encrypted or protected files, left behind over its decades of service to Rann's family. Most of the time he ignored them, though Sheen Him had taken to cracking a few of them for fun. Most had been corrupted and the rest were just sections of unneeded or unwanted coding. "Could Sheen Him have cracked the encrypt?"

Lilith shook her head. "No, he always tags the files he cracks. This one was locked until, well, this morning I guess. The power loss must have partially fragmented the encryption matrix."

"That should have destroyed the data in the file, too," Rann said, confused. "Unless..."

"Unless someone wanted the data backed up," Lilith said. "This encryption wasn't meant to keep that information secret or separate from anything else in the system. It was meant to keep the data safe."

"What is it?" Rann asked, leaning over her to access the file. It opened on the console's main screen. "Just hyperspace routes."

"Well, the file _was_ in the navicomputer," Lilith reminded him.

"Can you overlay them on a galactic map?" he asked. "Maybe we can see where they lead."

Lilith shook her head. "There's no frame of reference for them. I have the routes, but not the end coordinates or even the start coordinates. They must be in a separate sealed section of memory. We could overlay them on current shipping charts but this data's old. Very old. Who knows what kind of spatial anomalies have cropped up in the meantime."

Rann sighed. "All right. Tag the file. We might find something useful there later."

"Will do," Lilith said, tapping in a few more commands to her console. "All right, looks like the navicomputer is up and running, no data corruption. As soon as Sheen Him gets the hyperdrive back online, we should be ready to jump."

"The comm system will be ready as soon as the drives finish rebooting," Rann said, even as he reached for the intercom control on Lilith's console. "Sheen Him, how's it going back there?"

"_A few more hours and I should have the hyperdrive back up and running,_" Sheen Him answered, his already high-pitched voice sounding tinny and distant over the cockpit speakers. "_I'll get a few jumps out of it, at least._"

"Gila helping back there?" Lilith asked.

"_Of course I am!_" Gila's voice answered. Rann and Lilith shared a grin.

"Understood," Rann said. "The navicomputer is operational and we'll have communications online soon..." Even as he spoke, a soft beep emanated from the communications console. He recognised the tone immediately. So did Lilith. They exchanged a puzzled glance. "Hang on, we're getting a message. Stand by."

Putting Sheen Him and Gila on hold, he went to the station behind Lilith's chair. Sure enough, a message was being beamed directly to the _StarHawk_ on an encrypted private frequency that only one person in the galaxy had access to. Rann's eyes widened. Lilith, looking back at him, asked "What is it?"

"It's Treetops," Rann said, swallowing. He hit a control, directing the message to the cockpit's holotank. He settled in the pilot's chair just as the projector grille glowed blue. A holographic image of an elderly female Wookiee shimmered into life. She was somewhat stooped, her facial fur flecked with grey, but even in bluescanned simulacrum she projected wisdom, intelligence and tenacity. A long, gnarled wooden walking stick was held in one of her massive paws. She wore long, ceremonially adorned robes and some of her longer fur had been braided into long locks fastened by metallic and wooden beads.

Barking a greeting, she asked what had taken them so long to answer.

"Sorry," Rann said, offering a genuine, though contrite, smile. "We ran into some trouble on Nar Shaddaa." Quickly, he related what had happened.

The Wookiee chuffed a mocking, affectionate laugh. With low, keening growls, she outline why she was contacting then. Lilith and Rann shot each other a look as she spoke. At long last, she stopped and waiting expectantly for Rann's reply.

"Well, you should know that we're pretty badly damaged right now," he told her.

Treetops bared her fangs warningly. The mission she'd just given them wasn't dangerous, she insisted, but it was vital and time sensitive.

Rann nodded. "All right. We should have hyperdrive back in a few hours. We'll get on it, Kaali, and we'll get them to you as soon as we can."

With a nod and a growled thanks, the Wookiee Kaalibaparra, codenamed Treetops, signed off. The holotank went dark. Rann slapped the intercom control again.

"Sheen Him, get up here," he said into the mic, deactivating the system again before his Aleena technician could reply. Turning to Lilith, he asked "What do you think?"

"I think it's damn unusual," she replied. "Kaali's never _ordered_ us to do something before. This must be really important to her. I just can't think why."

"What, you mean picking up two people from some planet nobody's ever heard of?" Rann said, sarcasm dripping in his tone. "At least we won't need a fully functioning ship for that. It should be a..."

"Blue milk run?" Lilith finished for him, rolling her eyes.

Before Rann could respond, Sheen Him and Gila, the Aleena slightly shorter than the Twi'lek girl, entered the cockpit. "What is it?" he asked, sounding irritated. "I was this close to getting the motivator back online."

"A message from Treetops," Lilith answered. "We're wanted."

"Who's Treetops?" Gila asked.

"Our boss," Sheen Him answered, looking at Lilith. "What's the job?"

"She's not our boss," Rann shot back defensively. "Treetops is the codename of a Wookiee named Kaali. She's been a friend of my family for a very long time. She offers us sanctuary and a base of operations when we need it."

Gila nodded, adding "I've never seen a Wookiee before."

"So what did she want?" Sheen Him pressed.

"She's got friends stuck on a planet on the Outer Rim," Lilith answered. "We're going to pick them up."

"Is that all?" Sheen Him said, sounding a little bored. Gila, however, looked thrilled.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Over towards the Tion Cluster. A little planet in the Tobali system, out in the Thanium sector," Rann answered, though all of that was lost on Gila, whose astrographic knowledge was limited to the Y'Toub system and the rest of Hutt Space. "We're going to Rhen Var."

* * *

Hours later, with the hyperdrive repaired and functioning, the _StarHawk_'s ion engines flared. It repositioned itself before making the jump to lightspeed. If the crew had waited just a few minutes longer or if the damaged ship's sensors had been functioning properly, perhaps they would have noticed the ship reverting to realspace just behind them.

Instead, their hunter found nothing but residual radiation.

The elegant, sleek curves of the Surronian-designed starship lingered a few moments, its scanners piecing together the _StarHaw_k's ion trail and determining its course. A second later, it leapt into hyperspace, hot in pursuit.


End file.
